Jf*l'  W    W     W      V  £*~^ 

CIAI/IS 


F  O  R 


JOSEPH  E, COHEN 


LIBRARY 

University   of   California 

IRVINE 


Socialism  for  Students 


By 
JOS.     E.     COHEN 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 
1910 


Copyright  1909 
By  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company 


PREFACE 

This  little  work  consists  of  a  series  of 
articles  reprinted  from  the  columns  of  "The 
International  Socialist  Review,"  and  written  in 
answer  to  the  request  of  its  editor  for  a  study 
course  in  'Socialism. 

The  aim  of  the  author  is  to  indicate  in 
briefest  outline  some  of  the  more  salient  points 
in  the  Socialist  philosophy,  so  as  to  give  the 
reader  an  inkling  into  the  nature  of  the  modern 
Socialist  movement.  At  best  this  treatise  can 
serve  only  as  a  framework.  The  much  more 
important  task  of  rearing  the  structure  remains 
for  the  student.  It  is  hoped  that  the  course 
of  reading,  suggested  in  the  appendix,  will  be 
found  of  service  in  this  respect. 

So  far  as  possible  the  author  has  followed  the 
beaten  path  of  Socialist  thought  and  purposely 
tried  to  avoid  phases  of  the  question  over 
which  there  is  serious  dispute.  Where  any- 
thing new  is  offered,  of  course  he  alone  is 
responsible.  J.  E.  C. 

Philadelphia,  June  24,  1909. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PREFACE 

CHAPTER 

CHAPTER 

CHAPTER 

CHAPTER 

CHAPTER 

CHAPTER 

CHAPTER     VII. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CHAPTER       IX. 

APPENDIX    . 


I. 

II. 
III. 
IV. 

V. 
VI. 


Page 

3 

INTRODUCTION 7 

THE  SOCIALIST  INDICTMENT..  18 

SOCIALIST  ECONOMICS 31 

THE  CLASS  STRUGGLE 47 

HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM 62 

SOCIALISM  AND  SCIENCE 78 

SOCIALIST  SOCIOLOGY 94 

SOCIALIST  PHILOSOPHY 114 

SOCIALIST  STATEMAJJSHIP 130 

..149 


SOCIALISM  FOR   STUDENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

Socialism  is  the  issue  to-day.  It  is  the  in- 
spiration  of  press,  pulpit  and  forum,  the  theme 
of  artist  and  poet,  the  problem  of  problems 
confronting  the  statesman.  For  many  years 
the  Socialists  of  Germany,  France  and  other 
European  countries  have  been  able  to  say  that 
their  governments  formulated  no  policy  with- 
out first  considering  how  it  would  affect  the  So- 
cialist movement.  In  America  the  new  force 
was  a  little  slow  in  coming  to  be  felt.  But  the 
spectre  of  Socialism  has  entered  the  White 
House  and  is  being  wrestled  with  by  the  two 
dominant  political  parties. 

While  Socialism  is  the  all-absorbing  topic 
of  discussion,  it  is  a  subject  concerning  which 
the  greatest  misunderstanding  prevails.  Thus, 
within  recent  years  Eugene  Richter,  while 
member  of  the  German  Reichstag,  wrote  a 
book  called  "Pictures  of  the  Future,"  in  which 
he  most  effectively  demolished  tHe  straw  man 
who  advocates  governmental  interference  in 
every  detail  of  life.  And  in  the  campaign  of 
1906  our  own  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, Joseph  G.  Cannon,  unburdened  him- 
self of  the  "stalest  of  the  stale"— that  "Social- 

7 


g  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

ism  means  dividing  up."  We  are  still  told  that 
Socialism  would  reduce  us  to  a  dead  level,  or 
that  human  nature  is  too  imperfect  to  permit 
of  the  realization  of  the  new  order ;  that  Social- 
ism means  paternalism — extension  of  govern- 
mental regulation,  or  anarchy — destruction  of 
all  government;  that  Socialism  existed  thou- 
sands of  years  ago,  or  that  it  is  a  thousand 
years  ahead  of  the  times;  that  Socialism  is  a 
beautiful  but  impossible  Utopia,  or  that  it  is 
the  coming  slavery. 

We  need  not  pause  here  to  meet  these  com- 
mon objections  to  Socialism.  They  have  been 
admirably  answered  by  Work,  Spargo,  Vail, 
Hyndman,  Plechanoff  and  Marx  and  Engels. 
The  objections  usually  encountered  are  found 
to  spring  either  from  misinformation  as  to 
what  Socialism  is,  or,  more  particularly,  the  aim 
of  the  Socialist  movement.  In  studying  Social- 
ism, we  can,  in  a  great  measure,  note  the  his- 
torical situations  that  gave  rise  toother  schools 
of  thought  and  that  prompt  the  criticisms 
offered  by  the  opponents  of  Socialism. 

If  Socialism  is  not  what  the  non-Socialists 
declare  it  to  be — what  is  it? 

Here  is  the  word  of  an  authority: 

"Modern  Socialism,"  says  Engels,  in  his 
"Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific,"  "is  in  its 
essence,  the  direct  product  of  the  recognition, 
on  the  one  hand,  of  the  class  antagonism  exist- 
ing in  the  society  of  to-day,  between  proprietors 
and  non-proprietors,  between  capitalists  and 
wage-workers;  on  the  other  hand  of  the 
anarchy  existing  in  production." 


INTRODUCTION  9 

Let  us  dwell  upon  this  definition.  It  contains 
several  points,  indispensable  for  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  question. 

First  of  all,  we  are  dealing  with  modern 
Socialism — not  the  early  socialism  of  Owen, 
St.  Simon,  Fourier  and  the  like.  We  are  not 
dealing  with  the  many  attempts  that,  from 
Plato  to  Bellamy,  have  been  made  to  design 
a  beautiful  utopia  upon  the  impression  that, 
irrespective  of  actual  conditions,  it  needs  but 
to  be  presented  to  any  people  in  order  to  be 
promptly  accepted.  We  are  not  dealing  with 
the  prehistoric  communism  of  tribal  society, 
nor  with  the  communism  practiced  in  the  early 
days  of  Christianity. 

The  Socialism  of  our  time  flows  out  of 
circumstances  "existing  in  the  society  of  to- 
day," not  that  of  five  hundred  years  ago  or  ten 
thousand  years  ago.  Here  we  at  once  part 
company  with  many  non-Socialist  political 
economists.  Unlike  them,  we  shall  not  trespass 
upon  Robinson  Crusoe's  mythical  island.  The 
Indian  with  his  bow  and  arrow  shall,  for  the 
time  being,  be  allowed  to  rest  his  oft-troubled 
bones  in  peace  in  his  happy  hunting  ground; 
the  Esquimaux  and  South  Sea  Islanders,  too, 
shall  be  permitted  to  go  their  own  way  re- 
joicing. For,  in  this  connection,  we  shall  deal 
only  with  countries  in  a  state  of  civilization. 

The  circumstances  which  concern  us  here 
are  the  heritage  especially  of  the  industrial 
revolution  of  the  last  century.  Certain  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  gave  us  steam  and 


10  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

electricity  for  power,  which,  applied  to  the 
simple,  inexpensive  tool,  through  the  trans- 
mitting mechanism  of  fly-wheels,  shafting, 
pulleys,  etc.,  transformed  it  into  a  complicated, 
expensive  machine.  With  the  industrial  revo- 
lution, society  began  to  separate,  roughly 
speaking,  into  two  classes;  those  who  own  the 
machines  and  those  who  operate  them.  In 
other  words,  a  small  number  of  the  people, 
capitalists,  possess  as  their  exclusive  private 
property  the  land,  mines,  factories,  railroads 
and  other  important  instruments  by  the  use 
of  which  goods  are  produced  to  satisfy  human 
wants;  while  the  great  mass  of  the  people, 
workers,  possess  only  their  brain  and  brawn, 
which  they  dispose  of  to  the  capitalists  for 
wages. 

-  Employers  and  employes  meet  upon  the 
labor  market,  the  capitalists  as  buyers,  the 
workers  as  sellers,  of  labor  power.  The  capital- 
ists aim  to  buy  the  labor  power  of  the  workers 
as  cheaply  as  possible ;  the  workers  aim  to  sell 
their  labor  power  as  dearly  as  possible.  Out 
of  this  inherent  conflict  of  interests  between 
them  arises  the  class  struggle. 

The  industrial  revolution,  at  the  same  time, 
brought  about  the  factory  system  with  its 
division  of  labor  and  the  world  market.  In 
the  factory  thousands  of  men  and  women  and 
children  toil  together,  each  performing  but  a 
single  task,  the  results  of  hundreds  of  opera- 
tions being  finally  assembled  into  the  finished 
article.  More  than  that,  the  four  corners  of 


INTRODUCTION  U 

the  earth  vie  with  each  other  in  contributing 
food  and  clothing  for  employer  and  employe, 
and  the  building  material,  illumination,  fuel, 
raw  material,  machinery  and  power,  for  the 
factory.  Again,  the  factory  product  is  not  re- 
tained by  those  who  have  toiled  together  to 
bring  it  forth,  but  by  the  factory  owner.  But 
rarely  does  the  owner  use  even  a  morsel  of 
the  goods  produced  in  his  factory.  He  pro- 
duces, not  for  his  own  use,  but  for  sale.  Almost 
invariably  he  thrusts  the  article  upon  the 
market  in  competition  with  the  wares  of  other 
lands.  Commerce  thus  breaks  down  all 
barriers,  destroys  all  geographical  boundaries, 
establishes  international  relations  and  makes 
the  working  class  of  the  whole  world  kin. 
Merchandise  is  your  most  persistent  globe 
trotter. 

But  while  the  production  of  goods  is  a  social 
affair,  it  is  nevertheless  carried  on  by  the 
capitalist  class  for  their  private  profit;  that  is 
to  say,  production  is  social,  while  ownership 
and  distribution  are  individual.  The  workers. 
make,  and  the  capitalists  take.  It  fs  this  con- 
tradiction between  socialized  production  and 
capitalist  appropriation  which  causes  the  waste, 
lack  of  order  and  anarchy  that  prevails  in  the 
making  and  disposing  of  goods. 

Thus  we  have  the  anarchy  in  production  and 
the  consequent  class  struggle.  To  explain 
fully  the  capitalist  system  of  production, 
showing  that  the  more  useless  the  capitalists 
become  the  richer  do  they  wax  in  the  unpaid 


12  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

labor  of  the  workers,  showing  that  the  system 
is  responsible  for  the  economic  ills  from  which 
we  suffer,  showing  that  the  trend  of  industrial 
progress  is  toward  the  collective,  social  owner- 
ship by  the  whole  people  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction they  use  in  common — that  is  Socialist 
political  economy.  To  organize,  upon  the  basis 
of  the  class  struggle,  those  who  are  dissatisfied 
with  present  arrangements,  voicing  the  aims 
of  the  oppressed,  fighting  their  battles  and 
having  for  its  ultimate  object  the  elimination 
of  the  anarchy  in  production  and  the  ending 
of  the  class  struggle — that  is  •  the  Socialist 
movement. 

To  aid  him  in  clearly  understanding  present 
society,  the  Socialist  turns  to  the  discoveries 
in  the  modern  sciences,  embraces  the  theory 
that  evolution  lies  in  a  change  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex,  and  that  every  organism  and 
organization  rises,  flourishes  and  carries  within 
itself  the  seeds  of  growth  to  a  higher  order. 
The  Socialist  brings  to  light  the  hidden  secrets 
of  past  society  as  his  contribution  toward  the 
solution  of  the  "riddle  of  the  unierse."  And 
the  result  of  this  excursion  is  the  materialistic 
interpretation  of  history,  the  theory  that,  from 
epoch  to  epoch,  changes  in  the  forms  of  govern- 
ment, human  nature,  arts,  sciences,  philosophies 
and  conceptions  of  the  purpose  of  existence 
can  be  accounted  for  only  by  considering  the 
changes  in  the  manner  of  securing  a  livelihood; 
that,  consequently,  since  prehistoric  commun- 
ism, one  struggle  between  oppressors  and  op- 


INTRODUCTION  13 

pressed  has  followed  another,  these  struggles 
being  always  political  in  character,  and  that 
the  time  has  now  come  when  the  industrial 
revolution  must  be  supplemented  by  a  political 
and  social  revolution,  whereby  the  workers,  in 
securing  power,  once  and  for  all  abolish  class 
distinctions.  Modern  Socialism  is  therefore 
scientific.  The  'Socialist  movement  is  therefore 
a  political  movement. 

Relying  upon  the  assurance  that  every 
transformation  in  the  economic  basis  of  so- 
ciety is  attended  by  a  transformation  in  the 
intellectual  superstructure,  Socialism  maintains 
that  once  the  economic  question  is  settled, 
that  once  the  lust  of  gain  at  the  expense  of 
our  fellow  men  is  no  longer  the  paramount 
incentive,  as  it  is  to-day — breaking  up  the 
family  into  a  camp  of  enemies — that  once  the 
economic  pressure  is  removed,  there  will  follow 
such  a  blossoming  of  what  is  best  in  human 
nature  as  will  be  a  veritable  rebirth  of  the 
soul  of  man. 

The  Socialist  ideal,  therefore,  rests  upon  a 
solid  foundation. 

The  Socialist  traces  the  development  of  the 
family,  property  and  the  state,  from  ancient 
down  to  modern  times.  By  knowledge  of 
the  changes  the  form  of  the  family  has  under- 
gone in  the  past,  he  can  more  intelligently  con- 
sider the  problems  of  morality  and  ethics.  In 
like  manner,  knowledge  of  the  history  of 
property  and  government  enables  him  to  ex- 
plain ideas  of  justice  and  equity,  duties  and 


14  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

rights.  Especially  is  this  of  service  in  setting 
aside  the  evils  that  can  be  treated  immediately 
from  those  that  will  only  adjust  themselves 
after  the  fundamental  wrong  is  righted.  The 
sociology  of  the  Socialist,  therefore,  assumes 
the  broadest  dimensions. 

The  Socialist  then  directs  his  attention  to 
the  manner  in  which  the  human  brain  operates. 
He  inquires  into  the  process  of  thinking  and 
ascertains  the  method  by  which  the  mind  forms 
ideas  and  spins  philosophies.  He  discovers 
that  the  material  is  the  substance  of  the  ideal ; 
but,  that  they  complement  each  other  in  a 
universal  conception.  By  so  doing  the  Social- 
ist exposes  the  false  reasoning  and  undermines 
the  last  stronghold,  the  dualism,  of  his  op- 
ponents ;  he  establishes  a  monistic  view  of  life 
growing  out  of  historical  materialism,  and 
completes  the  synthetic  philosophy  of  Social- 
ism. 

In  thus  dividing  'Socialism  into  a  system  of 
political  economy,  a  theory  of  social  evolution 
and  an  ideal,  and  showing  its  relation  to 
modern  science,  sociology  and  philosophy,  we 
are  just  as  arbitrary  as  is  Shakespeare  in 
dividing  the  span  of  man's  life  into  seven  ages. 
For  Socialism  is  not  a  piece  of  mechanism, 
which  can  be  decomposed  into  its  parts,  re- 
quiring only  lubrication  and  the  touch  of  some 
man's  finger  to  start  it  a-going.  To  the  thirty 
millions  of  men  and  women  of  all  climes  and 
complexions  who  constitute  the  international 
Socialist  movement,  Socialism  is  a  compact 


INTRODUCTION  15 

whole,  one  and  indivisible,  striving  for  the  free- 
dom of  the  human  race  from  economic  bondage. 

Because  capitalism  degrades  woman  even 
more  than  man,  and  because  the  emancipation 
of  society  at  large  depends  upon  the  emanci- 
pation of  woman,  woman  takes  her  place  by 
the  side  of  man  in  the  Socialist  movement ;  be- 
cause society  is  divided  into  two  contending 
classes,  the  Socialist  movement  is  a  class 
movement;  because  economic  questions  are 
political  questions,  the  Socialist  movement  is  a 
political  movement;  because  the  working  class 
are  without  a  country,  migrating  from  one  end 
of  the  earth  to  the  other  in  search  of  masters, 
because  capitalism  is  international,  the  So- 
cialist movement  is  international;  because  the 
source  of  the  trouble  is  the  contradiction  be- 
tween socialized  production  and  capitalistic 
appropriation,  not  reform  but  social  revolu- 
tion is  the  remedy ;  because  the  workers  cannot 
free  themselves  without  at  the  same  time  free- 
ing all  mankind,  the  Socialist  movement  has 
the  grandest  ideal  known  to  history. 

(Socialism  is  something  more  than  the  passing 
of  one  order  in  favor  of  another.  It  is  born  of 
the  slavery,  the  anguish  and  the  travail  of  the 
world's  toilers.  The  story  of  labor's  struggle 
upward  out  of  bondage  is  written  in  tears  and 
blood.  It  is  a  record  of  bold  spirits  who  have 
been  ostracized  and  exiled  because  of  their 
convictions.  It  is  a  record  of  noble  men  who 
have  gladly  abandoned  lives  of  ease  and  luxury 
to  bend  their  genius  to  the  cause  of  the  op- 
pressed. It  is  a  record  of  a  mighty  host  who 


16  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

have  gone  to  their  graves  "unwept,  unhonored 
and  unsung,"  because  of  the  unquenchable  fire 
of  justice  burning  in  their  bosoms.  It  is  A 
record  of  the  sublimest  comradeship  that  ever 
encircled  the  earth. 

With  the  rise  of  the  Socialist  movement, 
labor  ceases  to  be  an  object  of  pity  and  charity. 
Conscious  of  its  wrongs  and  how  to  right  them, 
it  no  longer  looks  to  the  upper  class  for  its 
salvation,  but  sounds  the  call  for  the  solidarity 
of  the  workers  of  the  world.  Against  the 
political  economy,  the  science,  the  philosophy, 
the  law,  the  ethics,  the  art  and  the  ideals  of  the 
masters,  it  submits  its  own  political  economy, 
science,  philosophy,  law,  ethics,  art  and  ideal. 
Against  the  present  labor  offers  the  future- 

'Finally,  the  Socialist  recognizes  that,  while 
the  revolutions  of  the  past  have  been  fought 
and  won  by  the  lower  classes  without  either 
they  or  the  upper  classes  having  a  well- 
defined  idea  of  the  outcome,  the  benefits  have, 
on  that  account,  accrued  largely  to  the  upper 
classes;  that  the  social  revolution  which  it  is 
the  mission  of  the  working  class,  as  a  class,  to 
accomplish,  because  it  is  a  movement  for  the 
benefit  of  the  masses,  requires  the  intelligence 
of  the  workers  and  particularly  a  thorough 
familiarity  with  Socialist  thought  by  those 
who  ally  themselves  with  the  cause  of  the 
workers.  The  slogan  of  the  Socialist  is,  there- 
fore: "More  light,  more  light!"  His  emblem 
Is  the  arm  and  torch. 

Through  the  labyrinths  of  darkness  and 
gloom  the  seeker  after  truth  must  wend  his 


INTRODUCTION  17 

way  for  the  golden  thread  of  knowledge.  It 
is  thus  that  the  torchlight  is  ever  borne  aloft 
by  her  apostles,  now  to  flicker  and  wane 
among  the  crags,  then  to  illuminate  the  sombre 
wilderness ;  now  to  be  lost  in  the  caverns,  then 
to  burst  forth  anew  from  the  mountain  peaks: 
ever  forward,  ever  onward,  ever  upward ! 


CHAPTER  II 

s      THE  SOCIALIST  INDICTMENT 

The  present  order  in  which  we  live  did  not 
begin  the  moment  the  first  human  being  had 
the  breath  of  life  blown  into  his  nostrils.  It 
came  much  later.  In  fact  it  is  less  than  six 
hundred  years  old,  having  developed  out  of  a 
former  social  order,  known  as  feudalism,  which 
was  based  upon  the  ownership  of  land  by  lords 
and  barons. 

Nor  was  the  present  order  ushered  in  with 
the  hearty  approval  of  those  most  concerned. 
Quite  the  contrary.  The  manner  of  its  coming 
is  fairly  indicative  of  its  whole  career. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  last  part  of  volume  I  of 
"Capital",  dealing  with  "The  So-called  Prim- 
itive Accumulation,"  for  light  upon  this  point. 
Here  we  learn  that  in  the  transition  period 
between  feudalism  and  capitalism,  bands  of 
feudal  retainers  were  broken  up,  arable  land 
was  transformed  into  sheep  walks,  the  church 
was  despoiled  of  its  property,  crown  lands 
were  stolen,  the  commons  were  enclosed, 
estates  were  "cleared"  of  the  peasants,  several 
Irish  villages  thus  being  depopulated  at  one 
blow,  while  in  Scotland  areas  as  large  as 
German  principalities  were  swept  clean.  In  a 
"clearing"  made  for  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland, 
15,000  inhabitants  were  rooted  out,  their 

18 


THE   SOCIALIST  INDICTMENT  19 

villages  destroyed  and  burnt  and  their  fields 
turned  into  pasturage.  By  this  means  the 
Duchess  appropriated  some  794,000  acres  of 
land  that  had  from  time  immemorial  belonged 
to  the  clan. 

Marx  also  tells  of  the  "bloody  legislation" 
by  which  feudal  serfs  were  bludgeoned  into 
becoming  factory  workers.  Anyone  idling 
about  for  three  days  was  branded  with  a  red 
hot  iron  with  a  V  on  his  breast,  refusal  to 
work  forfeited  a  man's  economic  freedom ;  did 
he  absent  himself  a  fortnight  from  his  master, 
he  was  branded  with  an  S,  upon  his  back,  after 
which,  did  he  run  away  thrice,  he  was  executed 
as  a  felon. 

"The  discovery  of  gold  and  silver  in  America, 
the  extirpation,  enslavement  and  entombment 
in  mines  of  the  aboriginal  population,  the  be- 
ginning of  the  conquest  and  looting  of  the  East 
Indies,  the  turning  of  Africa  into  a  warren  for 
the  commercial  hunting  of  black-skins,  signal- 
ised the  rosy  dawn  of  the  era  of  capitalist  pro- 
duction. .These  idyllic  proceedings  are  the 
chief  momenta  of  primitive  accumulation.  On 
their  heels  tread  the  commercial  wars  of  the 
European  nations,  with  the  globe  for  a 
theatre." 

True  enough  is  it,  as  Marx  says:  "In  actual 
history  it  is  notorious  that  conquest,  enslave- 
ment, robbery,  murder,  briefly  force,  play  the 
great  part."  In  short,  "Capital  comes  drip- 
ping from  head  to  foot,  from  every  pore,  with 
blood  and  dirt." 


20  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

And  when  the  industrial  revolution  had  been 
accomplished,  when  feudalism  had  been  sup- 
planted by  capitalism,  what  was  the  result? 
Great  blotches  upon  the  earth's  surface  called 
cities  eclipsed  the  hills,  the  meadows,  the 
lanes,  the  running  brooks  and  the  glorious 
sunsets  of  rural  life, — great  cities  in  which  the 
inhabitants  are  huddled  together  in  a  mad 
struggle  for  existence.  Engels  has  described 
England  as  he  found  it  half  a  century  after  the 
introduction  of  machinery:  "In  London,  fifty 
thousand  human  beings  get  up  every  morning, 
not  knowing  where  they  will  lay  their  heads  at 
night. . . .  The  poverty  is  so  great  in  Dublin, 
that  a  single  benevolent  institution,  the  Men- 
dicity Association,  gives  relief  to  2,500  persons 
or  one  per  cent  of  the  population  daily,  re- 
ceiving and  feeding  them  for  the  day  and  dis- 
missing them  at  night."  Similar  conditions 
are  cited  for  Glasgow,  Edinburgh  and  other 
cities.  Engels  enumerates  the  diseases  peculiar 
to  the  workers  and  gives  figures  to  show 
that  the  death  rate  among  the  poor  is  twice 
that  among  the  rich.  And  after  telling  of 
the  terrible  conditions  under  which  factory 
"hands"  are  compelled  to  work,  he  concludes: 
"Women  made  unfit  for  child  bearing,  chil- 
dren deformed,  men  enfeebled,  limbs  crushed, 
whole  generations  wrecked,  afflicted  with 
disease  and  infirmity,  purely  to  fill  the  purses 
of  the  bourgeoisie." 

Of  the  hardships  inflicted  upon  the  children 
John  A.  Hobson  says :  "There  is  no  page  in  the 


THE   SOCIALIST   INDICTMENT  21 

history  of  our  nation  so  infamous  as  that  which 
tells  the  details  of  the  unbridled  greed  of  these 
pioneers  of  modern  commercialism,  feeding  on 
the  misery  and  degradation  of  English  chil- 
dren." 

The  same  charges — with  even  a  greater 
burden  of  proof — can  be  made  against  the 
England  of  to-day.  For  example,  turn  to  Jack 
London's  "People  of  the  Abyss,"  narrating  ex- 
periences which  befell  him  in  the  largest  city 
in  the  world  in  the  summer  of  1902,  during  a 
period  of  "good  times." 

"One  million,  eight  hundred  thousand  people 
in  London  live  on  the  poverty  line  and  below 
it,  and  another  1,000,000  live  with  one  week's 
wages  between  them  and  pauperism,"  he  de- 
clares. "The  population  of  London  is  one- 
seventh  of  the  total  population  of  the  United 
Kingdom  and  in  London,  year  in  and  year  out, 
an  adult  in  every  four  dies  on  public  charity, 
either  in  the  workhouse,  the  hospital  or  the 
asylum."  "There  are  300,000  people  in  London, 
divided  into  families,  that  live  in  one-room 
tenements.  Far,  far  more  live  in  two  and  three 
rooms  and  are  as  badly  crowded,  regardless  of 
sex,  as  those  that  live  in  one  room. . . .  There 
are  900,000  people  living  in  less  than  the 
400  cubic  feet  of  space  prescribed  by  the  law." 
And  of  those  who  have  employment,  according 
to  Sir  A.  Forwood :  "One  of  every  1400  work- 
men is  killed  annually,  one  of  every  2,500 
workmen  is  totally  disabled ;  one  of  every  300 
workmen  is  temporarily  disabled  three  or  four 
weeks." 


28  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

But  these  are  only  figures.  And  figures  are 
cold  and  lifeless — they  do  not  touch  the  human 
heart.  Let  us  take  a  few  incidents,  which  are 
just  as  true  of  American  cities.  "The  shadow 
of  Christ's  church  falls  across  Spitalfields  Gar- 
den, and  in  the  shadow  of  Christ's  Church,  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  I  saw  a  sight  I 

never  wish   to   see   again 'Those   women 

there/  said  our  guide  (pointing  to  a  group  of 
the  35,000  wretches  of  the  slums,  not  depraved 
women,  who  are  homeless),  'will  sell  them- 
selves for  thru'  pence,  or  tu'  pence,  or  a  loaf 
of  stale  bread/  "  Also,  this  experience,  which 
London  tells  of  his  two  companions,  a  carter 
and  a  carpenter:  "From  the  slimy  sidewalk, 
they  were  picking  up  bits  of  orange  peel,  apple 
skin,  and  grape  stems,  and  they  were  eating 
them.  The  pits  of  green  gage  plums  they 
cracked  between  their  teeth  for  the  kernels  in- 
side. They  picked  up  stray  crumbs  of  bread 
the  size  of  peas,  apple  cores  so  black  and  dirty 
one  would  not  take  them  to  be  apple  cores, 
and  these  things  these  two  men  took  in  their 
mouths,  and  chewed  them,  and  swallowed 
them." 

The  author  sums  it  up  thus :  "In  short,  the 
London  Abyss  is  a  vast  shambles.  Year  by 
year,  and  decade  after  decade,  rural  England 
pours  in  a  flood  of  vigorous  strong  life,  that 
not  only  does  not  renew  itself,  but  perishes 
by  the  third  generation."  And,  quoting  the 
scientist  Huxley:  "Were  the  alternative 
presented  to  me  I  would  deliberately  prefer  the 


THE  SOCIALIST  INDICTMENT  28 

life  of  the  savage  to  that  of  those  people  of 
Christian  London." 

So  much  for  the  "classic  land  of  capitalism." 
What  song  does  America  sing?  America,  the 
new  world,  the  Canaan  of  natural  resources, 
with  its  vast  expanse  of  fertile  soil,  magnificent 
forests,  navigable  rivers,  and  unlimited  op- 
portunities? Here,  as  in  the  old  world,  the 
"primitive  accumulation"  began  with  immense 
land  grants,  bestowed  upon  court  favorites  by 
kings  at  the  expense  of  the  original  inhabitants, 
with  no  other  warrant  than  that  "possession  is 
nine  points  of  the  law."  Stealing  of  lands  is 
quite  a  gentlemanly  occupation.  Some  of  the 
colonial  surveyors — patriots,  all — were  not 
averse  to  doing  it,  and,  in  our  own  time,  several 
eminent  gentlemen  have  been  exposed  as  tim- 
ber land  thieves.  And  speaking  of  patriotism, 
we  may  here  note  that  just  that  time  when 
love  of  country  runs  strongest  is  seized  by  un- 
scrupulous men  of  means  to  defraud  the  people, 
in  filling  army  contracts  and  taking  advantage 
of  the  financial  embarrassment  of  the  govern- 
ment. That  this  has  been  so  all  down  our 
history,  Laurens,  in  the  Revolution,  Lincoln, 
in  the  Civil  War,  and  General  Miles,  in  the 
war  with  Spain,  bear  witness. 

Another  method  in  vogue  generally  and  in 
line  with  primitive  accumulation  is  the  despoil- 
ing of  inventive  genius.  Not  only  do  the  bene- 
fits of  progress  inure  largely  to  the  few,  but  it 
is  considered  axiomatic  that  inventors  must  fill 
paupers'  graves.  Edison  is  such  a  shining  ex- 


24  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

ception  to  this  rule,  that  he  is  regarded  as  the 
marvel  of  the  age. 

Well,  capitalism  is  established  in  America. 
We  know  it  by  its  fruits.  For  when  Robert 
Hunter  stated  the  problem  of  poverty,  he 
rendered  so  many  counts  in  the  indictment 
against  the  present  social  system.  "These 
fragments  of  information,  indicative  of  a  wide- 
spread poverty,"  he  says,  "fall  under  the  fol- 
lowing heads :  Pauperism,  the  general  distress, 
the  number  of  evictions,  the  pauper  burials ; 
the  overcrowding  and  insanitation  due  to  im- 
proper housing;  the  death  rate  from  tubercu- 
losis ;  the  unemployment,  and  the  number  of 
accidents  in  certain  trades." 

The  many  fragments  of  information  gleaned 
by  Hunter  are  summarized  by  him  as  follows : 
"There  are  probably  in  fairly  prosperous  years 
no  less  than  10,000,000  persons  in  poverty ;  that 
is  to  say,  underfed,  underclothed  and  poorly 
housed.  Of  these  about  4,000,000  are  public 
paupers.  Over  2,000,000  workingmen  are  un- 
employed from  four  to  six  months  in  the  year. 
About  500,000  male  immigrants  arrive  yearly 
and  seek  work  in  the  very  districts  where  un- 
employment is  the  greatest.  Nearly  half  of  the 
families  in  the  country  are  propertyless.  Over 
1,700,000  little  children  are  forced  to  become 
wage-earners  when  they  should  still  be  in 
school.  About  5,000,000  women  find  it  neces- 
sary to  work  and  about  2,000,000  are  employed 
in  factories,  mills,  etc.  Probably  no  less  than 
1,000,000  workers  are  injured  or  killed  each 
year  while  doing  their  work,  and  about 


THE   SOCIALIST   INDICTMENT  25 

10,000,000  of  the  persons  now  living,  will,  if 
the  present  ratio  is  kept  up,  die  of  the  prevent- 
able disease,  tuberculosis." 

Between  eighty  and  ninety-four  per  cent  of 
the  houses  in  the  large  cities  are  rented ;  in  the 
year  1903,  60,463  of  such  "homes"  in  Manhat- 
tan, fourteen  per  cent  of  the  total,  were  broken 
up  by  forcible  eviction.  In  the  city  of  New 
York,  too,  one  out  of  every  ten  persons  who 
dies  is  buried  at  public  expense  in  Potter's 
Field. 

Isador  Ladoff  also  furnishes  us  with  some 
interesting  data.  Over  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  millions  of  dollars  is  spent  annually  in  the 
State  of  New  York  alone  for  charity.  Dr. 
Savage  is  quoted  as  saying  that  one-fourth  of 
the  tenement  population  take  advantage  of  the 
free  treatment  of  the  dispensaries.  A  specific 
instance  of  conditions  in  the  large  cities  sur- 
rounding modern  industrial  enterprise  is  de- 
scribed by  A.  M.  Simons  in  his  "Packing- 
town,"  the  antecedent  of  "The  Jungle." 

Under-  the  influence  of  the  chapter  on  "The 
Child"  in  "Poverty,"  John  Spargo  made  a  more 
thorough  investigation  into  the  hardships  of 
child  life,  the  results  of  which  he  gives  us  in  his 
work,  "The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children."  We 
can  here  only  hint  at  the  wealth  of  information 
that  work  contains.  "In  Chicago,  the  death 
rate  varies  from  about  twelve  per  thousand  in 
the  wards  where  the  well-to-do  reside  to 
thirty-seven  per  thousand  in  the  tenement 
wards."  "I  think  it  can  safely  be  said  that  in 
this  country,  the  richest  and  greatest  country 


28  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

in  the  world's  history,  poverty  is  responsible 
for  at  least  80,000  lives  every  year."  In  con- 
nection with  which  this  should  be  considered : 
"The  experts  say  that  the  baby  of  the  tenement 
is  born  physically  equal  to  the  baby  of  the 
mansion." 

"Sanitary  conditions  do  not  make  any  real 
difference  at  all;  it  is  food  and  food  alone," 
declares  Dr.  Vincent.  Personal  examinations 
conducted  by  Spargo  showed  that  as  many  as 
20  per  cent  of  school  children  are  underfed. 

The  employment  of  children  who  belong  in 
school,  child-slavery,  is  the  blackest  crime  in 
our  social  arrangement.  The  frightful  condi- 
tion depicted  by  Engels  wherein  children  from 
orphan  asylums  and  other  institutions  were 
hired  by  mill  owners  never  to  return  alive,  has 
been  equaled  by  a  similar  condition  in  the 
glass  factories  of  New  Jersey,  within  our  own 
time.  In  the  coal  regions  of  Pennsylvania  and 
other  states,  thousands  of  breaker  boys  sit  all 
day  long  before  the  shutes  down  which  rushes 
tons  of  coal  and  slate.  Their  fingers  are* 
bruised  and  distorted  by  the  work.  They  are 
not  only  deprived  of  schooling,  but  even  of  the 
opportunity  of  exchanging  a  thought  with 
their  mates  unless  they  shout  at  the  top  of 
their  lungs,  so  great  is  the  din.  And  while 
children  of  tender  years  are  employed  through- 
out New  England  and  all  industrial  states,  it  is 
only  when  we  cross  the  Mason  and  Dixon 
Line  to  the  sunny  South  that  the  institution  of 
child  slavery  is  presented  to  us  in  all  its  horror. 

We  cite  a  few  instances  taken  from   the 


27 

United  States  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor 
for  May,  1904.  At  that  time,  whatever  im- 
provements may  since  have  been  made,  South 
Carolina  prohibited  the  labor  of  tots  only  under 
ten  years  of  age,  but  had  no  provision  for 
factory  inspection.  Georgia  had  no  age  limit, 
and  Alabama  none  to  speak  of.  North  Carolina 
prohibited  the  employment  of  children  under 
12  years  of  age  but  had  no  provision  for  carry- 
ing this  into  effect,  so  that  children  6  and  7 
years  of  age  were  found  working.  Violations 
were  plentiful  in  every  state.  Except  for  a 
very  few  in  two  establishments,  the  children 
in  the  Southern  States  were  white  children. 
The  working  hours  were  as  many  as  sixty-six 
a  week.  None  of  the  children  reported  for 
North  and  South  Carolina  and  Alabama  had 
foreign-born  parents,  while  in  some  instances 
no  less  than  thirty-seven  per  cent  were  unable 
to  read  and  write  English.  And  the  number  of 
child  slaves  is  constantly  increasing! 

But  this  is  only  part  of  the  price  the  working 
class  pay  for  the  privilege  of  dragging  their 
weary  bodies  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 
For  the  profit  of  the  capitalist  class,  so  we  are 
informed  by  Dr.  Wiley,  after  twenty-five  years' 
work  in  the  Department  of  Agriculture, 
practically  everything  we  eat  and  drink  is 
adulterated. 

For  the  profit  of  the  capitalist  class  there  are 
"he"  towns  and  "she"  towns,  with  the  result 
that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women 
pass  their  lives  in  enforced  celibacy.  And 
worse  than  that,  the  inability  of  young  men  to 


28 

earn  enough  to  support  families,  is  responsible 
for  the  fact  that  half  a  million  women  peddle 
their  virtue  as  merchandise  upon  the  street. 
And  so  great  is  the  marital  incompatibility,  due 
in  no  small  measure  to  economic  reasons,  that 
it  is  reported  there  were  a  million  divorces  in 
the  United  States  within  the  last  three  years. 

From  year  to  year,  as  the  rich  grow  richer 
and  the  poor  poorer,  the  contrast  between  the 
two  classes  is  intensified.  At  one  pole,  the 
upper  class  is  steeped  in  degeneracy.  At  the 
other  pole,  there  sinks  an  element,  creatures  of 
the  city  "dumps"  and  "slums",  into  the  under 
world.  Both  scum  and  dregs  are  lost  to  the 
race. 

Periodically  the  entire  system  is  thrown  out 
of  joint  by  industrial  crises,  due  to  the  ex- 
ploitation of  labor,  the  anarchy  in  production, 
and  the  fact  that  the  capitalist  class  cannot 
control  the  Frankenstein,  the  productive  forces, 
they  have  conjured  into  being.  During  a 
commercial  depression,  the  industrial  reserve 
army  of  out  of  works  is  increased  by  millions 
of  recruits,  with  a  consequent  demoralization 
of  the  whole  working  class.  At  such  a  time, 
the  feeling  of  insecurity  as  to  the  present  and 
uncertainty  as  to  what  may  come,  that  ever 
haunts  the  workers,  grows  into  a  veritable 
nightmare.  It  is  just  this  fear  of  the  morrow 
that  stings  more  than  poverty  itself  and  that 
is  the  strongest  charge  in  the  indictment  of 
capitalism. 

Thousands  of  babies  are  every  year  the 
victims  of  preventable  diseases,  caused  in  the 


THE  SOCIALIST  INDICTMENT  29 

main  by  malnutrition;  women  are  unfitted  for 
the  function  of  motherhood,  due  to  their  toiling 
in  the  factories,  while  to  name  the  dangerous 
occupations  in  which  men  are  employed  is  to 
give  an  inventory  of  occuptions — almost  every 
trade  having  its  special  disease.  In  some 
cases  it  is  the  monotony  of  work  that  wrecks 
the  nervous  system ;  in  others,  the  strain  upon 
certain  parts  of  the  body  or  certain  organs ;  in 
others,  the  unsanitary  conditions  of  the  work- 
shop ;  in  others,  the  handling  of  dyes  and 
poisons,  or  the  inhaling  of  foul  air  and  dust. 
It  is  the  last  named  particularly  that  is  re- 
sponsible for  tuberculosis. 

Tuberculosis  is  not  only  a  social  disease — it 
is  a  poverty  disease,  a  working  class  plague — 
well  named  the  Great  White  Plague.  One 
glance  at  the  map  at  a  tuberculosis  exhibit 
suffices  to  show  where  the  "lung"  districts  are 
— suffices  to  prove  that  out  of  the  working 
class  comes  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
and  women  and  children  in  America  who  fall 
in  the  white  massacre.  Every  occupation  has 
its  distinct  disease ;  tuberculosis  is  the  distinct 
disease  of  capitalism. 

This,  then,  is  the  Socialist  indictment:  That 
after  thousands  of  years  of  toil  and  trial,  after 
having  stolen  the  secrets  of  the  skies  and 
harnessed  the  forces  of  nature,  society  is  still 
engaged  in  a  fiendish  struggle  '^r  animal 
existence,  a  struggle  that  dooms  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  to  poverty  and  misery,  degrada- 
tion and  disease,  slavery  and  untimely  death. 
And  the  Socialist  charges  that  the  great  under- 


30  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

lying  wrong  out  of  which  these  evils  arise  is 
the  fact  that  the  few  own  what  the  many  need. 
And  the  Socialist  declares  that  only  when  so- 
ciety holds  as  common  property  the  means  of 
wealth  production  will  the  social  ills  that  we 
are  heir  to  be  banished,  for  only  then  will  the 
toil  of  the  people  inure  to  the  common  weal 
and  make  for  the  common  good. 


CHAPTER  III 

SOCIALIST    ECONOMICS 

Political  economy  concerns  itself  with  the 
bread  and  butter  question.  To  study  this 
question  in  all  its  aspects,  to  understand  the 
material  conditions  of  life,  which  Hegel  termed 
"civic  society,"  is  the  purpose  of  political 
economy.  For,  as  Marx  said:  "The  anatomy 
of  that  civic  society  is  to  be  found  in  political 
economy." 

Just  now  we  are  going  to  examine  the 
anatomy  of  present  day  society — capitalist  so- 
ciety. How  can  we  distinguish  capitalism  from 
feudalism  and  chattel  slavery?  What  is 
capital?  "Capital,"  say  the  non-Socialist 
economists,  "is  that  part  of  wealth  used  to 
create  more  wealth."  This  definition  is  about 
as  satisfactory  as  the  old  Greek's  description  of 
man — "a  featherless  biped."  It  is  true  that 
man  is  a  featherless  biped,  but  there  are  other 
featherless  bipeds — and  all  featherless  bipeds 
are  not  men.  Man  is  something  more  than 
a  featherless  two-legged  animal.  And,  in  the 
same  way,  capital  is  something  more  than  "that 
part  of  wealth  used  to  create  more  wealth." 

We  know  that  capitalists  are  not  feudal 
lords  and  that  capitalists  are  not  slave  owners. 
No  one  but  a  non-Socialist  economist  would 


32  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

think  of  saying  there  were  capitalists  in  the 
dark  ages  any  more  so  than  he  would  think  of 
speaking  of  the  astronomy  of  Adam's  day.  A 
definition  of  capital,  to  be  worth  anything, 
must  lay  stress  upon  its  historical  character  as 
well  as  its  peculiar  function ;  it  can  be  true 
only  of  certain  countries  at  certain  times  under 
certain  conditions.  Capital  is  a  transitory  ar- 
rangement and  the  laws  of  capitalist  produc- 
tion apply  only  to  capitalism.  They  do  not 
apply  to  the  finding  of  diamonds  on  the  street, 
or  to  handicraft,  or  to  the  fine  arts.  The 
laws  of  capitalist  production  do  not  apply  to 
all  production  carried  on  to-day,  and  do  not 
apply  to  other  systems  of  production,  such  as 
chattel  slavery  and  feudalism. 

Here  is  the  definition  of  John  A.  Hobson: 
"Capitalism  may  provisionally  be  defined  as 
the  organization  of  business  upon  a  large  scale 
by  an  employer  or  company  of  employers 
possessing  an  accumulated  stock  of  wealth 
wherewith  to  acquire  raw  materials  and  tools, 
and  hire  labor,  so  as  to  produce  an  increased 
quantity  of  wealth  which  shall  constitute 
profit." 

Capitalism,  therefore,  requires:  Production 
on  a  large  scale;  the  workers  divorced  from 
the  ownership  both  of  the  means  of  production 
and  the  product  of  their  labor;  the  capitalist 
class  owning  the  means  of  production,  hiring 
the  workers  for  wages  and  retaining  the  product 
of  the  workers'  labor;  production  for  sale  and 
the  profit  of  the  capitalist  class. 

With  that  we  are    ready  for  Marx's    illu- 


SOCIALIST    ECONOMICS  38 

initiating  sentence,  which  is  a  keynote  to  the 
critical  analysis  of  capitalism:  "The  wealth  of 
those  societies,  in  which  the  capitalist  mode 
of  production  prevails,  presents  itself  as  an 
immense  accumulation  of  commodities,  its  unit 
being1  a  single  commodity." 

A  commodity  is  something  bought  and  sold. 
It  is  an  article  that  satisfies  some  human  want 
or  fancy.  It  is  a  product  of  labor.  But  while 
every  commodity  is  a  product  of  labor,  every 
product  of  labor  is  not  a  commodity. 

Every  product  of  labor  that  serves  a  useful 
purpose  has  use  value.  Yet  a  thing  may  be 
very  useful  to  the  man  who  makes  it,  such  as 
the  raft  of  the  backwoodsman,  and  not  be  a 
commodity. 

To  be  a  commodity,  a  product  of  labor  must 
bring  a  price  upon  the  market.  It  must  be  a 
common  object  of  trade  and  produced  with  the 
end  in  view  of  being  exchanged  for  money — 
of  being  sold.  In  addition  to  having  use  value, 
to  be  a  commodity  it  must  possess  exchange 
value. 

Use  value  may  be  a  personal  affair ;  exchange 
value  is  a  social  relation. 

It  is  the  possession  of  exchange  value  that 
turns  a  labor  product  into  a  commodity.  Under 
all  systems  of  production  are  articles  produced 
for  their  use  value.  It  is  the  particular  pro- 
duction of  exchange  values,  or  commodities, 
that  distinguishes  capitalism  from  feudalism, 
chattel  slavery  and  primitive  communism.  In 
capitalist  society  exchange  value  is  so  much 


34  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

more  important  than  use  value,  that  whenever 
we  speak  of  value  we  mean  exchange  value. 

Let  us  now  see  how  value  is  determined. 

"Labor  produces  all  weath,"  say  some  po- 
litical economists.  This  is  another  "featherless 
biped"  definition.  For  we  must  know  what 
sort  of  labor  produces  use  value  and  what  sort 
of  labor  produces  exchange  value.  And  on  this 
point  a  dignified  silence  is  too  of  ten  maintained. 

To  produce  use  value,  such  as  hats,  it  re- 
quires labor  of  a  certain  kind,  the  labor  of 
hatters,  not  that  of  cigarmakers.  This  labor 
of  a  certain  kind,  the  labor  of  hatters  in  shaping 
hats  or  the  labor  of  cigarmakers  in  rolling 
cigars,  is  called  concrete  labor.  Concrete  labor 
produces  use  value. 

Now,  when  we  say ,  "This  hat  is  worth  four 
dollars,  while  this  box  of  cigars  is  worth  only 
two  dollars,"  it  is  because  hats  and  cigars  have 
something  in  common,  other  than  that  they 
contain  concrete  labor.  We  take  it  for  granted 
that  the  hat  was  made  by  hatters,  not  cigar- 
makers,  and  that  the  cigars  were  not  made  by 
hatters.  Exchange  yalue  is  not  created  by 
concrete  labor.  The  problem  here  is  not  "what 
kind,"  but  "how  much?"  Exchange  values 
are  quantities,  not  qualities. 

Exchange  value  is  determined  by  the  amount 
of  labor  in  the  commodity.  It  is  not  the 
particular  labor  of  hatters  and  cigar  makers 
that  you  buy  with  dollars,  so  much  as  a  certain 
amount  of  general  labor.  You  pay  four  dollars 
for  a  hat  and  two  dollars  for  a  box  of  cigars, 
because,  as  a  rule,  twice  as  much  average  labor 


SOCIALIST    ECONOMICS  35 

has  been  spent  in  making  the  hat  as  was  spent 
in  making  the  box  of  cigars,  just  as  you  pay 
twice  as  much  for  two  boxes  of  cigars  as  you 
pay  for  one.  This  labor  that  you  buy  with 
money,  because  it  is  considered  apart  from  the 
nature  of  the  labor  performed,  is  called  ab- 
stract labor.  This,  then,  is  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two: 

Concrete  labor  produces  use  value.  Abstract 
labor  measures  exchange  value. 

Further:  All  labor  is  not  of  one  grade.  But 
the  more  skilled  can  be  reduced  to  the  less 
skilled;  one  day's  high  class  labor  is  worth, 
say,  two  day's  simple  labor.  This  is  not  a  very 
difficult  thing  to  do  since,  as  Marx  tells  us, 
"Unskilled  labor  constitutes  the  bulk  of  all 
labor  performed  in  capitalist  society,  as  may  be 
seen  from  all  statistics."  Nor  do  we  deal  with 
the  actual  labor  of  the  individual.  Production 
is  for  the  market  and  the  competition  of  other 
producers  is  involved.  Value  is  a  social  rela- 
tion. A  more  exact  definition,  therefore,  would 
be:  Exchange  value  is  measured  by  the  aver- 
age amount  of  simple,  abstract  labor,  socially 
necessary  to  produce  the  commodity. 

Commodities  produced,  they  are  next  ex- 
changed. Money  is  the  medium  of  exchange, 
accepted  in  all  countries  reached  by  capitalism ; 
money  is  the  universal  equivalent.  While  the 
money  paid  for  some  commodities,  their  price, 
is  above  their  value,  and  the  price  of  others  is 
below  their  value,  value  is  at  the  bottom  of 
price  and,  taking  the  whole  field  of  capitalist 


36  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

production  into  consideration,  commodities 
may  be  said  to  exchange  at  about  their  value. 
The  tendency  is  for  exchange  to  be  between 
equal  values. 

But  if  only  labor  creates  value,  and  if  com- 
modities exchange  at  about  their  value,  how 
does  it  come  that  Mr.  Coldcash,  who  owns  a 
factory,  who  does  no  labor,  but  is  taking  the 
rest  cure  at  Monte  Carlo,  receives  a  very  satis- 
factory yearly  income? 

Here  another  character  steps  upon  the  scene. 

This  character  is  the  worker.  He  comes  to 
the  market  where  only  commodities  are  bought 
and  sold.  He  owns  no  commodities,  He  has 
no  hats,  cigars,  or  diamonds  to  sell — at  least 
not  in  any  considerable  quantity,  and  capitalism 
concerns  itself  only  with  production  on  a  large 
scale.  He  cannot  sell  commodities,  yet  this  is 
a  commodity  age.  What  can  he  sell? 

He  has  something  to  sell  which  every  capital- 
ist is  anxious  to  buy.  The  worker  sells  his 
labor  power,  the  use  of  his  brain  and  brawn, 
for  wages.  Wage-labor  is  an  institution  pe- 
culiar to  capitalism,  as  against  serfdom  and 
chattel  slavery.  And  the  worker  throws  his 
labor  power  upon  the  market  as  a  commodity. 

Mr.  Coldcash  is  in  business  purely  for  busi- 
ness. Now,  the  price  of  the  commodity  labor 
power,  like  all  commodities,  rests  upon  its 
value.  And  the  principal  factor  in  determining 
its  value  is  the  amount  of  abstract  labor  it  re- 
quires to  keep  glowing  the  spark  of  life  in  the 
workers  and  enable  them  to  reproduce  the 


SOCIALIST    ECONOMICS  37 

species;  that  is  to  say,  the  amount  of  food, 
clothing  and  shelter  required  to  sustain  life. 

We  say  "principal  factor,"  not  the  only 
factor.  Socialists  do  not  hold  to  the 
"iron  law  of  wages."  For,  to  quote 
Marx,  "There  are  some  peculiar  features 
which  distinguish .  the  value  of  the  labor- 
ing power,  or  the  value  of  labor,  from  the 
value  of  other  commodities.  The  value  of 
laboring  power  is  formed  by  two  elements — 
the  one  merely  physical,  the  other  historical  or 
social.  Its  ultimate  limit  is  determined  by  the 
physical  element,  that  is  to  say,  to  maintain 
and  reproduce  itself,  to  perpetuate  its  physical 
existence,  the  working  class  must  receive  the 
necessaries  absolutely  indispensable  for  living 
and  multiplying.  . . .  Besides  this  mere  physical 
element,  the  value  of  labor  is  in  every  country 
determined  by  a  traditional  standard  of  life.  It 
is  not  merely  physical  life,  but  it  is  the  satis- 
faction of  certain  wants  springing  from  the 
social  conditions  in  which  people  are  placed 
and  reared  up." 

For  the  rest,  that  the  cost  of  production  is 
the  principal  element  in  determining  wages  is 
illustrated  by  the  fact  that  scales  of  wages 
vary  from  town  to  town  according  to  the 
different  standards  of  living. 

Labor  power  is  sold  as  a  commodity.  What 
happens?  Mr.  Coldcash  starts  in  business  by 
paying  so  much  for  raw  material,  machinery, 
heat,  light,  etc.,  and  so  much  for  labor  power. 
Let  us  say  he  invests  $1,000,000,  of  which 


38  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

$200,000  goes  for  wages  during  the  year.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  there  are  profits  to  the 
amount  of  $400,000.  By  what  magic  did  Mr. 
Coldcash's  $1,000,000  breed  $400,000  while  Mr. 
Coldcash  was  taking  the  rest  cure  at  Monte 
Carlo? 

Once    again,    what    entered    into    the    pro 
duction? 

First  of  all,  raw  material,  machinery,  fuel, 
light,  power,  etc.,  worth  $800,000  and,  let  us 
say,  all  used  up.  Turn  these  commodities 
about  as  you  will,  equal  values  exchange  for 
equal  values,  whether  before  or  after  produc- 
tion. The  $800,000  worth  of  goods  are  worth 
just  that  amount  in  the  finished  products. 

There  was  also  $200,000  worth  of  labor 
power.  Let  us  follow  that  a  little  more  closely. 

When  a  worker  sells  his  labor  power,  he  sells 
it  for  about  what  it  costs  him  to  produce  it. 
A  day's  pay  is  about  what  it  costs  the  worker 
to  live  a  day.  But  the  amount  of  time  he 
works  that  day  has  next  to  nothing  to  do  with 
his  cost  of  living.  That  is  regulated  by  the 
competition  of  workers  for  employment,  the 
strength  of  unions,  factory  legislation,  etc. 
And,  mark  it  well,  regardless  of  whatever  in- 
fluences may  favor  him,  there  is  a  considerable 
difference  between  the  number  of  hours  it 
takes  him  to  produce  value  equal  to  his  wages 
and  the  total  number  of  hours,  constituting  the 
working  day,  for  which  he  has  to  work  for 
those  wages.  There  is  a  substantial  difference 
between  the  value  the  worker  creates  and  the 
wage  he  receives  for  creating  it.  When  the 


SOCIALIST    ECONOMICS  39 

capitalist  buys  labor  power  for  a  day,  he  pays 
for  the  number  of  hours  it  takes  the  worker 
to  produce  the  equivalent  of  his  wages ;  he 
pays  for,  say,  three  hours.  When  the  capitalist 
sells  the  worker's  product  he  sells  the  total 
number  of  hours  the  worker  has  toiled ;  he 
sells,  say,  nine  hours.  This  difference  of  six 
hours'  labor  time  and  value  the  capitalist 
pockets.  This  is  surplus  value. 

Thus  while  Mr.  Coldcash's  manager  buys 
and  sells  labor  power  at  its  value,  he  neverthe- 
less realizes  $400,000  worth  of  surplus  value. 
"Surplus  value  is  unpaid  labor,"  is  the  theory 
that  Marx  was  the  first  to  critically  examine 
and  elucidate.  And  unpaid  labor  is  the  corner 
stone  of  the  present  social  order. 

Let  us  follow  Mr.  Coldcash.  That  worthy 
gentleman  does  not  pocket  all  of  the  $400,000. 
He  has  rented  the  factory  from  Mr.  Codfish,  a 
a  member  of  the  landed  aristocracy.  Mr.  Cod- 
fish must  maintain  himself  in  a  manner  be- 
coming his  station,  which  means  that  he  must 
not  soil  his  lily  white  hands  or  wrinkle  his 
brow  with  work.  To  avoid  doing  so,  he  exacts 
rent,  say  $40,000  a  year.  Moreover,  Mr.  Cold- 
cash  is  under  some  obligations  to  Mr.  Money- 
bags, the  financier,  who  lent  Mr.  Coldcash  the 
$1,000,000  with  which  he  started  in  business. 
Mr.  Moneybags  is  also  one  of  the  pillars  of 
society  and  must  be  supported  in  idleness.  So 
Mr.  Moneybags  very  graciously  receives  back 
his  principal  with  interest  at  the  current  rate, 
say  $60,000.  What  Mr.  Coldcash  retains  as  his 
share,  $300,000,  is  industrial  profit.  While  this 


41)  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

division  does  not  always  take  place,  one  in- 
dividual often  officiating  in  two  or  even  the 
three  capacities,  yet  if  for  no  other  reason  than 
to  explain  their  different  stages  historically, 
we  divide  surplus  value  into  rent,  interest  and 
profit. 

The  distinction  between  profit  and  surplus 
value  should  be  emphasized.  Profits  are  calcu- 
lated on  the  total  investment.  Surplus  value 
represents  the  exploitation  of  labor  and  is 
based  upon  the  wages  only.  In  the  case  here 
given,  the  entire  profits  were  about  $400,000 
on  the  $1,000,000  invested,  or  40  per  cent.  At 
the  same  time  that  $400,000  was  extracted  out 
of  the  labor  of  the  workers  whose  wages  were 
$200,000.  The  rate  of  surplus  value  was  200 
per  cenj. 

The  difference  between  profit  and  surplus 
value  is  so  marked  that  one  may  increase 
while  the  other  decreases.  For  example,  take 
the  "law  of  diminishing  returns,"  offered  by 
Mr.  Coldcash's  apologists  to  excuse  his  pocket- 
ing the  unearned  increment.  It  happens  that 
normally,  in  a  number  of  commercial  enter- 
prises, by  the  increase  of  invested  capital  laid 
out  in  more  expensive  machinery,  etc.,  as  well 
as  artificially,  by  over-capitalization,  watering 
of  stocks,  lobbying  and  bribery  of  public 
officials,  keeping  a  double  set  of  books,  and 
such  other  methods  best  known  to  the  eminent- 
ly respectable  Mr.  Coldcash,  the  average  rate 
of  profit  may  be  shown  to  be  dwindling  from 
year  to  year.  The  rate  of  exploitation,  how- 
ever, constantly  increases,  due  to  labor-dis- 


SOCIALIST    ECONOMICS  41 

placing  machinery,  the  growth  of  the  industrial 
reserve  army  and  the  consequent  intenser 
struggle  for  work,  so  that  labor,  and  not 
capital,  brings  in  diminishing  returns.  This, 
and  this  alone,  accounts  for  the  tremendous  in- 
crease in  the  national  wealth  and  the  making  of 
multi-millionaries. 

We  may,  in  passing,  also  consider  a  few 
more  of  the  explanations  offered  to  show  cause 
why  Mr.  Coldcash  and  his  colleagues  are  en- 
titled to  retain  their  unearned  increment. 
Here  is  one  holy  trinity  that  is  frequently 
encountered:  Mr.  Coldcash's  profits  are 
merely  his  wages  of  risk,  superintendence  and 
abstinence.  Wages  or  risk — by  which  it  is 
claimed  that  the  worker  should  insure  Mr. 
Coldcash  against  the  risk  of  not  realizing 
surplus  value.  Wages  of  superintendence — 
which  overlooks  the  fact  that  surplus  values 
were  never  so  scarce  as  when  Mr.  Coldcash 
superintended  the  business  and  never  so 
abundant  as  when  Mr.  Coldcash  was  taking  the 
rest  cure  at  Monte  Carlo.  Wages  of  ab- 
stinence— which  ignores  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Coldcash  was  only  abstinent  when  the  surplus 
value  was  meagre ;  now  that  it  is  plentiful  he  is 
no  longer  ascetic,  but  leads  a  life  of  debauch- 
ery— or,  rather,  takes  the  rest  cure — at  Monte 
Carlo. 

But  if  the  capitalist  class  are  to  be  re- 
munerated for  lack  of  risk,  superintendence 
and  abstinence,  why  not  the  workers  who  do 
run  all  risk  of  life  and  limb,  do  the  super- 
intending, and  whose  wages  compel  them  to 


42  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

be  abstinent?  Why  is  it  that,  for  the  workers, 
"virtue  is  its  only  reward?"  The  fact  that 
dividends  come  to  owners  whether  they  be 
children,  insane  or  degenerate,  shows  that 
surplus  value  is  secured  without  returning 
an  equivalent. 

In  view  of  the  ground  we  have  now  covered, 
let  us  amplify  our  definitions.  Here  is  what 
Marx  says  of  capital :  "Capital  does  not  consist 
of  means  of  subsistence,  implements  of  labor, 
and  raw  materials  alone,  nor  only  of  material 
products ;  it  consists  just  as  much  of  exchange 
values.  All  the  products  of  which  it  consists 
are  commodities.  Thus  capital  is  not  merely 
the  sum  of  material  products ;  it  is  a  sum  of 
commodities,  of  exchange  values,  of  social 
quantities."  Hyndman  and  Untermann,  be- 
sides Marx,  have  developed  this  thought 
further,  illustrating  the  many  garbs  in  which 
capital  appears,  also  the  divers  functions  money 
performs. 

As  to  value  and  price,  Untermann  quotes 
Kautsky  upon  an  important  point.  "It  is  not 
the  value,  but  the  price  of  production,  which 
forms  under  a  developed  capitalist  mode  of 
production  the  level,  around  which  market 
prices  fluctuate  under  the  influence  of  demand 
and  supply.  The  price  of  production,  however, 
is  not  floating  on  air,  but  rests  upon  value." 
The  price  of  production  consists  of  the  cost 
plus  the  average  rate  of  profits  which  the 
capitalists  are  able  to  secure  at  the  particular 
time.  In  regard  to  value,  price  of  production 
and  market  price,  it  is  well  to  heed  what  Marx 


SOCIALIST  ECONOMICS  43 

says:  "By  comparing  the  standard  wages  or 
values  of  labor  in  different  countries,  and  by 
comparing  them  in  different  historical  epochs 
of  the  same  country,  you  will  find  that  the 
value  of  labor  itself  is  not  fixed  but  a  variable 
magnitude,  even  supposing  the  values  of  all 
other  commodities  to  remain  constant.  A 
similar  comparison  would  prove  that  not  only 
the  market  rates  of  profit  change,  but  its 
average  rates." 

Whatever  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  market, 
such  as  supply  and  demand,  "buying  cheap 
and  selling  dear,"  the  influence  of  monopoly 
and  such  other  "higgling  of  the  market,"  which 
affect  prices  and  give  one  capitalist  the  ad- 
vantage over  another,  however  turbulent  the 
sea  of  conflicting  emotions  upon  which  capital- 
ists are  tossed  as  to  the  desirability  of  securing 
a  slow,  small  and  sure  return  on  their  invest- 
ments as  against  a  quick,  large,  but  uncertain 
return,  the  workers  remain  the  sole  producers 
of  value  and  the  capitalists  remain  the  idlers 
and  appropriators  of  surplus  value.  When 
commodities  have  been  produced,  exchanged 
and  distributed  under  the  methods  generally 
prevailing  (all  of  which  is  included  in  the  term 
production),  the  only  exploitation  of  the 
workers  peculiar  to  capitalism  has  been  ac- 
complished. 

With  Marx's  theory  of  surplus  value  as  an 
X-ray,  to  borrow  an  idea  from  one  of  Rata 
Langa's  masterly  cartoons,  we  can  lay  bare  the 
mechanism  of  capitalist  production.  It  is  the 
exploitation  of  labor,  the  accumulation  of 


44  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

surplus  values  in  the  shape  of  exchange  values 
in  such  quantity  as  to  glut  the  market,  that 
is  the  primary  cause  of  commercial  crises.  A 
commercial  crisis  apprehends  Messrs.  Cold- 
cash,  Codfish  and  Moneybags  in  the  act  of 
"getting  away  with  the  goods."  Here  we  may 
insert,  both  D.  A.  Wells  and  Hyndman  note 
that  the  crisi?  of  1873  was  the  first  to  indicate 
that  peoples  even  remotejy  connected  with 
capitalism  are  bound  up  with  it  in  sharing  the 
shock  of  an  industrial  disturbance.  Capitalism 
scourges  the  whole  world. 

During  a  crisis,  the  enterprise  of  smaller 
capitalists  is  assimilated  by  the  industrial 
giants.  This  also  results  from  attacks  upon 
the  "malefactors  of  wealth,"  and  from  in- 
surance scandal  and  "frenzied  finance"  ex- 
posures. For  the  timid,  petty  traders  are  al- 
ways first  to  sell  when  the  market  takes  a  bad 
turn  and  thus  play  into  the  hands  of  the  big 
holders. 

Aside  from  any  "illegal"  measure,  which  is 
but  the  hissing  steam  signifying  that  the  water, 
the  current  of  commerce,  has  reached  the  boil- 
ing point — the  point  wherein  consolidation  is 
inevitable — the  tendency  for  capital  to  concen- 
trate in  every  industry  and  to  centralize  into  the 
hands  of  fewer  capitalists,  is  only  a  higher 
form  of  the  present  system  of  production.  In- 
vestment continues  until  an  industry  is 
saturated  with  capital,  then  independent 
companies  are  merged  into  one,  the  corpora- 
tion next  absorbs  the  business  closely  allied 
with  it,  the  tentacles  of  the  more  successful 


SOCIALIST   ECONOMICS  45 

promoters  and  captains  of  industry  spread  out 
in  every  direction  until  there  comes  "the  en- 
tanglement of  all  peoples  in  the  net  of  the 
world  market  and,  with  this,  the  international 
character  of  the  capitalistic  regime." 

Vandervelde  and  John  A.  Hobson  describe 
the  trust  tendency.  Hobson  shows  that  in  the 
manufacture  of  American  agricultural  imple- 
ments, just  as  in  other  manufactures,  the  num- 
ber of  establishments  has  declined  appreciably 
from  1880  to  1900.  Altogether,  in  that  time,  the 
dependent  class  has  increased  73.6  per  cent, 
while  the  employing  or  independent  class  has 
increased  only  27.4  per  cent.  Curiously,  data 
to  show  how  rapidly  the  number  of  manu- 
facturing establishments  is  decreasing  crept  in- 
to the  Republican  Campaign  Text  Book  for 
1908.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  true,  as  Hobson 
says  further  along,  "We  find  that  it  is  precise- 
ly in  those  trades  which  are  most  highly  or- 
ganized, provided  with  the  most  advanced 
machinery,  and  composed  of  the  largest  units 
of  capital,  that  the  fiercest  and  most  un- 
scrupulous competition  has  shown  itself."  Such 
death  grapples  for  mastery  end  in  still  greater 
consolidation  and  serve  notice  that  the  time 
is  ripe  for  making  the  means  of  production  the 
collective  property  of  the  people. 

In  the  hands  of  the  Socialist,  political 
economy  ceases  to  be  the  "dismal  science." 
The  Marxian  school,  the  historical  school, 
vitalized  political  economy.  More  than  that, 
the  Socialist  is  not  concerned  with  economic 
measures  that  oppress  the  capitalists  of  one 


46  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

country  for  the  benefit  of  those  of  another 
country.  He  knows  that  exploitation  has  no 
fatherland.  The  Socialist  is  not  a  nationalist, 
but  an  internationalist.  In  his  hands  political 
economy  becomes  a  social  science. 

Only  by  the  aid  of  the  Marxian  theories  can 
we  fully  understand  capitalist  production,  ac- 
count for  the  poverty  of  the  workers  and  the 
riches  of  the  idlers,  explain  the  widening  gulf 
between  the  two  classes,  the  periodic  industrial 
depressions  and  the  rise  of  monopoly. 

To  the  Socialist,  capitalism  when  fully  de- 
veloped is  at  the  point  where  it  is  in  a  condition 
of  socialized  production  ready  for  socialized 
ownership,  whereby  the  means  of  production 
will  be  stripped  of  their  present  class  character 
as  capital,  so  that  labor  power  will  no  longer 
be  a  commodity  and  exploitation  of  the  pro- 
ducer will  cease.  Then  the  workers  will  re- 
ceive the  value  they  create,  distress  in  the 
midst  of  plenty  will  be  impossible,  the  world's 
productive  forces  will  be  scientifically  and 
planfully  con  trolled,  and  the  problem  of  political 
economy  will  be  solved:  To  so  arrange  the 
material  conditions  of  life  as  to  result  in  the 
happiness  of  the  whole  people. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   CLASS   STRUGGLE 

"The  history  of  all  hitherto  existing  society 
is  the  history  of  class  struggles,"  say  Marx  and 
Engels,  in  the  "Communist  Manifesto."  These 
are  the  first  words  written  on  modern  'So- 
cialism. The  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
condition  of  the  workers  cannot  be  improved 
by  an  appeal  to  the  innate  goodness  of  man- 
kind at  large,  but  can  come  only  through  the 
conscious  action  of  the  workers,  as  a  class — 
that  is  what  distinguishes  the  Socialist  move- 
ment from  all  other  movements.  Reduced  to 
a  sentence,  Socialism  is  the  workers'  side  of  the 
class  struggle.  Unless  it  acknowledges  its 
class  character,  Socialism  is  like  the  play  of 
Hamlet  without  "the  melancholy  Dane,"  like 
a  ship  at  sea  without  a  chart. 

Marx  and  Engels  were  not  the  first  to  note 
that  a  conflict  rages  between  economic  classes 
amounting  to  war.  Plato  said  as  much.  Here 
in  America,  Madison  wrote  in  "The  Federal- 
ist," at  the  very  beginning  of  the  nation's 
career :  "The  most  common  and  durable  source 
of  factions  has  been  the  various  and  unequal 
distribution  of  property.  Those  who  hold  and 
those  who  are  without  property  have  ever 
formed  distinct  interests  in  society."  And  John 

47 


48  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

C.  Calhoun  declared  almost  a  score  years  be- 
fore the  "Manifesto"  appeared:  "I.  hold  then, 
that  there  never  has  yet  existed  a  wealthy  and 
civilized  society  in  which  one  portion  of  the 
community  did  not,  in  point  of  fact,  live  on  the 

labor  of  the  other It  is  useless  to  disguise 

the  fact.  There  is  and  always  has  been,  in  an 
advanced  stage  of  wealth  and  civilization,  a 
conflict  between  labor  and  capital." 

It  is  the  special  merit  of  Marx  and  Engels  to 
have  first  observed  that  the  class  struggles  of 
history  are  a  "series  of  evolution,"  characteriz- 
ing the  change  from  one  social  arrangement  to 
another,  and  constituting  a  law  of  social 
development. 

In  America,  more  so  than  elsewhere,  the 
impression  prevails  that  because  our  form  of 
government  is  republican,  there  are  on  that 
account  no  classes  in  society.  Yet  that  very 
word  "society"  proves  the  reverse.  When  the 
papers  tell  us  that  Miss  Coldcash  is  about  to 
make  her  debut,  they  do  not  mean  that  she  is 
about  to  be  born.  They  serve  notice  on  a 
certain  exclusive  set  who  are  "society,"  that 
Miss  Coldcash  is  open  for  matrimonial  engage- 
ments. Daughters  of  the  lower  class  never 
make  their  debut.  When  an  industrial  depres- 
sion sets  in,  said  to  be  caused  by  "overpro- 
duction," no  one  imagines  that  the  surplus  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  workers — that  the  poor  are 
in  distress  because  they  possess  too  much. 
Nor  does  anyone  imagine  that  old-age  pensions 
are  for  retired  millionaires. 

Classes  are  and  always  have  been  in  Ameri- 


THE   CLASS   STRUGGLE  49 

ca,  because  classes  have  been  all  down  re- 
corded history.  The  class  struggle  was  the  first 
fruit  of  private  property.  But  the  simple  fact 
of  the  class  struggle  is  often  obscured  by  the 
glamor  of  romance,  which  is  the  principal 
stock-in-trade  of  many  historians.  Austin 
Lewis  is  entirely  right  when  he  says  of  the 
American  Revolution :  "It  was  carried  through 
with  the  most  pompous  announcements  of 
human  liberty  which  hardly  veiled  the  real 
designs  of  its  instigators.  It  denied  its  pro- 
fessed theories  at  its  very  inception  by  the  pro- 
clamation of  human  rights  and  the  acceptance 
of  chattel  slavery."  Not  only  the  black  race, 
but  thousands  of  whites,  were  held  in  bondage 
for  years,  while  political  liberty  was  restricted 
to  such  an  extent  that  less  than  one-fourth  of 
the  adult  males  had  a  vote  in  the  first  election. 
It  is  true,  however,  that  while  there  always 
have  been  classes  in  America,  class  lines  have 
not  been  so  sharply  defined  as  they  are  just 
now.  John  Adams  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  he  hoped  the  time  would  never  come  when 
a  man  would  be  worth  a  million  dollars.  To- 
day a  million  dollars  is  of  little  consequence  in 
the  commercial  world.  We  are  reaching  the 
billionaire  stage.  About  half  a  century  after 
Adams,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  thanked  his 
stars  that  "it  was  but  three  generations  rJe- 
tween  shirt  sleeves  and  shirt  sleeves."  The 
third  generation  of  our  time  run  little  risk  of 
returning  to  the  plow  or  forge.  However 
prodigal  they  may  be,  they  can  hardly  squan- 
der their  income,  let  alone  impair  their  capital, 


50  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

which  indeed,  is  often  held  in  trust  for  theru 
After  Holmes,  Lincoln,  in  his  first  message  to 
Congress,  wrote:  "A  few  men  own  capital, 
and  that  few  avoid  labor  themselves,  and  with 
their  capital  hire  or  buy  another  few  to  labor 
for  them.  A  large  majority  belong  to  neither 
class — neither  work  for  others  nor  have  others 
work  for  them."  Today  labor  for  wages  is 
the  ordinary  manner  of  gaining  a  livelihood ; 
capital  is  supreme — it  is  a  jealous  god  and  will 
have  no  other  gods  before.it. 

Again,  John  Adams  said:  "America  is  a 
nation  of  husbandmen,  planted  on  a  vast  con- 
tinent of  wild,  uncultivated  land ;  and  there  is, 
and  will  be  for  centuries,  no  way  in  which 
these  people  can  get  a  living  and  advance  their 
interests  so  much  as  by  agriculture.  They  can 
apply  themselves  to  manufactures  only  to  fill 
up  interstices  of  time,  in  which  they  cannot 
labor  on  their  lands,  and  to  commerce  only  to 
carry  the  produce  of  their  lands,  the  raw 
materials  of  manufactures,  to  the  European 
market."  Yet  the  American  Revolution  was 
fought  to  free  the  manufacturers  and  indebted 
Southern  planters  no  less  than  the  farmers, 
fishermen  and  merchants  of  New  England, 
whom  Adams  served.  Moreover,  Adams  was 
the  second  and  last  president  to  look  after  the 
interests  of  the  sea  cost,  being  defeated  largely 
by  the  combination  of  the  interests  he  con- 
sidered of  secondary  importance.  And  how- 
ever little  Adams  represented  the  Northern 
agricultural  element,  which  his  words  refer  to, 
with  his  defeat  that  element  never  again  con- 


THE   CLASS    STRUGGLE  51 

trolled  the  national  government.  Still  the 
farmer  of  the  Revolution,  who  "fired  the  shot 
heard  round  the  world,"  has  given  us  a  line  of 
sturdy  sons  of  the  soil,  who  have  fired  many  a 
good  shot  since;  in  our  own  time  through  the 
Grange  movement,  the  Greenback  and  Peoples 
parties  and,  in  conjunction  with  the  workers 
of  the  shop,  through  the  Socialist  party.  So  it 
has  come  about  that,  as  Ghent  puts  it: 
"America  may  have  been  another  name  for 
opportunity,  as  Emerson  said,  but  it  is  evident 
that  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  persons  op- 
portunity itself  was  but  a  name." 

The  class  structure  of  society  to-day  has 
been  most  clearly  defined  in  the  tables  macfe 
by  the  thorough  and  painstaking  Lucien'Sanial. 
He  divides  the  total  number  of  employed 
persons,  ten  years  of  age  and  upwards,  into 
three  classes.  The  plutocratic  class  numbers 
250,251,  is  0.9  per  cent  of  the  total,  possesses 
$67,000,000,000  or  70.5  per  cent  of  the  total 
wealth;  the  middle  class  numbers  8,429,845,  is 
29  per  cent  ofthe  total,  possesses  $24,000,000,- 
000  or  25.3  per  cent  of  the  total  wealth;  the 
proletarian  class  numbers  20,393,137,  is  70,1  per 
cent  of  the  total,  possesses  $4,000,000,000  or 
4.2  per  cent  of  the  total  wealth.  Sanial  himself 
points  out  that  the  wealth  of  the  working 
class  consists  largely  of  tools  and  household 
goods.  It  averages  about  $200  a  person — 
hardly  enough  to  drive  Standard  Oil  out  of 
business.  The  middle  class,  while  serving  as 
a  cushion  between  the  two  classes,  nevertheless 
comprises  divergent  interests  so  incapable  of 


52  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

concerted  action  as  to  be  of  much  less  im- 
portance than  their  strength  of  numbers  and 
wealth  would  lead  one  to  suppose.  They  are 
ground  between  the  upper  and  nether  mill- 
stones. For  all  practical  purposes,  there  are 
two  classes  in  society.  Such  a  conservative 
trades  union  leader  as  John  Mitchell  admits 
that  the  workers  can  no  longer  hope  to  rise  out 
of  their  class.  The  matter  of  fact  of  it  is,  a 
handful  of  money  kings  sway  the  nation's 
course. 

It  is  not  meant  to  imply  that  these  class 
lines  are  rigid  and  absolute.  The  contention  is 
that,  whatever  shifting  of  individuals  there 
may  be  from  one  class  to  another,  however  in- 
definite the  lines  of  demarcation  may  be,  there 
still  remain  the  capitalist  class  and  the  working 
class,  distinct  from  each  other,  with  antagon- 
istic and  irreconcilable  interests.  Even  were 
this  shifting  of  individuals  increasing  instead  of 
decreasing,  so  long  as  the  means  of  life  are 
permitted  to  be  privately  owned,  there  must 
of  neccessity  be  a  capitalist  class  and  a  working 
class,  exploiters  and  exploited. 

Nor  does  the  theory  of  the  class  struggle 
imply  that  all  is  smooth  sailing  for  the  class 
rising  to  power.  A  revolution  is  often  followed 
by  a  reaction  or  a  counter-revolution ;  a  class 
secures  power  only  to  find  itself  unable  to 
handle  it  and  is  compelled  to  share  it  with  the 
class  it  has  superseded.  Thus  Untermann  de- 
scribes the  present  dominant  class:  "The 
history  of  bourgeois  revolutions  is  a  succession 
of  compromises. . .  Indecision  and  compromise 


THE   CLASS    STRUGGLE  58 

are  bred  in  the  bourgeois  blood.  It  was  the 
fate  of  the  bourgeoisie  to  be  born  between  two 
fires.  In  the  attempt  to  extinguish  the  one  and 
keep  from  being  extinguished  by  the  other, 
the  bourgeois  nature  developed  that  weather 
vane  mind  for  which  it  has  become  historically 
disreputable."  Thus  the  American  government 
was  established  through  concessions  of  the 
commercial  and  manufacturing  classes  to  the 
slave  owners  of  the  South,  who  belonged  to  an 
obsolete  social  order.  Thus,  also,  prior  to  the 
Civil  War,  Hinton  Rowan  Helper,  in  his  "Im- 
pending Crisis,"  argued  that  the  non-slave 
holding  whites  of  the  South  were  being  ruined 
by  "King  Cotton,"  and  called  upon  them  to 
stamp  out  the  "peculiar  institution."  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Southern  oligarchy  always 
looked  down  with  disdain  upon  the  business 
shrewd  Yankee. 

Further,  while  capitalism  tends  to  urge  in- 
dustrial and  financial  capital  to  the  top,  it  by 
no  means  eliminates  other  forms  of  capital. 
The  frequent  occurrence  of  "rent  riots"  in  the 
larger  cities  indicates  that  landlords  have  not 
forgotten  how  to  turn  the  screws  upon  the 
workers.  But  to  learn  how  all-powerful  in- 
dustrial and  financial  capital  is  today,  we  need 
but  follow  the  acts  of  government.  Thus,  the 
treaty  of  peace  recently  made  between  Japan 
and  Russia  is  attributed  to  the  banking  houses 
of  Rothschild  and  Morgan.  Study  a  nation's 
policies  and  you  can  readily  tell  what  class  is 
in  the  saddle.  Political  power  is  the  handmaid 
of  economic  power. 


54  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

The  capitalist  class  ever  availed  themselves 
of  governmental  force  to  keep  the  workers 
down.  As  Marx  records,  in  addition  to  com- 
pelling agricultural  laborers  to  become  factory 
hands,  the  English  government  was  success- 
fully invoked  to  extend  the  length  of  the  work- 
ing day,  establish  a  maximum  scale  of  wages, 
with  fines  for  those  who  accepted  anything 
above  it,  and  to  outlaw  trades  unions.  Later 
some  of  these  measures  became  unnecessary, 
because  of  the  growth  of  the  industrial  reserve 
army,  while  others  were  battered  down  by  the 
workers  themselves  taking  a  hand  in  politics. 

For  their  part,  the  workers  are,  as  Shelley's 
verse  runs,  "heroes  of  unwritten  story."  "The 
unwritten  history  of  this  country  is  the  history 
of  the  American  working  people,"  says  Unter- 
mann.  During  ancient  and  mediaeval  times, 
except  for  occasional  outbursts  in  the  shape  of 
revolts,  which  were  more  or  less  quickly  sup- 
pressed, the  workers  occupy  the  background 
in  the  social  drama,  apparently  content  to  shed 
their  blood  for  their  masters.  The  foreground 
is  pre-empted  by  the  ruling  classes,  quarreling 
over  pelf  and  place.  Feudal  lords  succeed  slave 
ohners;  capitalists  wrest  the  sceptre  from 
feudal  lords;  each  in  turn  exploits  and  op- 
presses the  wealth  producers.  Every  time  a 
ruling  class  goes  down,  it  opens  the  way  for 
the  next  struggle.  Yet  the  field  ever  narrows 
until  only  the  workers  and  capitalists  remain. 
The  grapple  between  these  two  marks  the 
close  of  the  series,  for  when  the  workers  free 


THE   CLASS   STRUGGLE  55 

themselves  they  free  humanity  from  all  class    ' 
distinctions. 

At  the  same  time,  the  workers  were  plunged 
into  capitalism  amid  the  clashing  of  tremendous 
forces,  the  roar  of  the  cannon  no  less  than  that 
of  the  steam  engine.  The  spirit  of  the  toilers 
has  been  militant  down  the  decades.  Strikes 
began  in  colonial  days,  although  the  labor 
movement  dates  from  about  1830,  the  year  the  ' 
first  steam  engine  was  introduced  in  America. 
Says  Simons :  "It  is  to  these  early  working 
class  rebels  that  we  owe  to  a  larger  degree 
than  to  any  other  cause  not  only  our  public 
school  system,  but  abolition  of  imprisonment 
for  debt,  the  mechanic's  lien  law,  freedom  of 
association,  universal  suffrage,  improvement  in 
prison  administration,  direct  election  of  presi- 
dential electors  and  in  fact  nearly  everything 
of  a  democratic  character  in  our  present  social 
and  political  institutions.  .  .  .  For  the  working 
class  directly  they  succeeded  in  shortening 
hours  and  improving  conditions  in  many  di- 
rections. They  even  brought  sufficient  pressure 
to  bear  upon  the  national  government  to 
compel  the  enactment  of  a  ten  hour  law  and 
the  abolition  of  the  old  legislation  against 
trades  unions,  which  had  made  labor  organiza- 
tions conspiracies."  This  was  accomplished 
about  the  same  time  similar  reforms  were  won 
in  England. 

It  was  not  until  about  twenty  years  later 
that  the  organized  labor  movement  began  in 
earnest.  With  the  discovery  of  gold  in  Cali- 
fornia, in  1848,  the  point  farthest  west  was 


56  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

reached.  The  frontier  was  annexed  to  the  At- 
lantic' Coast  when  trans-continental  railways 
swung-  out  through  Chicago  ten  years  later. 
When  the  West  became  neighbor  to  the  East, 
there  was  an  exchange  of  ideas;  the  West 
benefited  by  Eastern  culture,  while  the  East 
profited  by  the  Western  spirit.  That,  together 
with  the  fall  of  the  slave  oligarchy,  cleared  the 
road  of  all  obstacles  in  the  way  of  modern 
capitalism,  and  since  then  its  development  has 
been  phenomenal.  But  lurking  behind  rampant 
capitalism,  its  very  shadow,  has  been  the 
modern  labor  movement. 

Within  the  period  covered  by  a  decade  either 
side  of  the  Civil  War,  most  of  the  international 
trades  unions  no*w  in  existence  were  organized. 
Keeping  step  with  the  expanse  of  capital,  in- 
dustrial conflicts  assumed  greater  proportions, 
involving  an  ever  larger  number  of  workers, 
until,  in  1877,  for  the  first  time  something  like 
a  general  strike  prevailed.  This  grew  out  of  a 
reduction  in  wages  among  railroad  men,  one 
of  the  burdens  labor  bore  because  of  the  crisis 
of  1873.  The  workers  of  the  country  again 
joined  hands  for  the  inauguration  of  the  eight 
hour  day  on  May  1,  1886.  In  1894  a  sym- 
pathetic strike  of  the  American  Railway  Union 
tied  up  the  nation's  arteries  of  traffic.  Again, 
in  1902,  America  was  shaken  from  coast  to 
coast  when  the  coal  miners  went  on  strike. 

In  the  trouble  of  1877,  Rutherford  B.  Hayes, 
then  president,  ordered  the  federal  troops  to 
the  scene  to  cow  the  strikers  into  submission. 
In  1886  a  more  expedient  method  was  found 


THE   CLASS    STRUGGLE  gf 

by  hanging-  some  leaders  of  the  movement, 
upon  the  flimsy  and  unsupported  charge  of 
their  being  responsible  for  the  Haymarket 
bomb  explosion.  The  strike  of  1894  was  broken 
by  the  usurpation  of  both  judicial  and  executive 
branches  of  the  government.  "Government  by 
injunction"  was  resorted  to  and  found  effective 
after  Preside!  Cleveland  failed  to  break  the  * 
strike  with  lederal  troops,  sent  to  Chicago  / 
over  the  protest  of  the  mayor  of  the  city  and 
the  governor  of  the  state.  The  strike  of  1902 
was  more  diplomatically  broken  by  President 
Roosevelt's  coming,  like  the  Greeks,  bearing 
gifts — gifts  of  honeyed  words  for  the  miners 
and  flattery  for  their  leaders. 

It  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  compile  a  list 
of  the  many  instances  in  which  city  and  state 
executives  have  wielded  the  strong  arm  of  the 
government  to  end  strikes.  The  most  ne- 
farious methods  ever  used,  probably,  are  those 
of  the  mine  owner's  association  and  its  sister 
corporations,  in  the  war  on  the  metalliferous 
miners.  In  the  Coeur  d'Alenes,  in  the  late 
'90's,  and  in  Colorado,  culminating  in  the 
stormy  days  of  1904,  the  master  class  excelled 
themselves.  The  workers  were  deprived  of 
their  constitutional  rights,  herded  by  the 
militia  wholesale  into  filthy  enclosures  known 
as  bull  pens  unprotected  from  the  elements, 
and  subjected  to  every  conceivable  indignity. 
Their  women  folk  were  outraged  by  the 
Hessians,  their  stores  and  property  destroyed 
and  they  themselves  often  bayonetted  out  of  ! 
town  or  deported  by  train  and  warned  never  to  ' 


58  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

return  on  penalty  of  death.  In  this  gentle 
manner  have  the  profit-thirsty  capitalists  taken 
pains  to  demonstrate  that  "there  are  no  classes 
in  America!" 

Possibly  the  most  outrageous  violation  of 
law  and  liberty  came  when  Moyer,  Haywood 
and  Pettibone,  prominent  in  the  Western 
Federation  of  Miners,  were  kidnaped  from 
their  homes  at  night,  and  confined  in  prison 
for  over  a  year  and  a  half  before  being  brought 
to  trial.  The  noteworthy  feature  of  this  case 
was  the  abject  servility  to  capital  with  which 
the  partners  in  the  conspiracy  against  the 
miners,  from  Washington  to  Boise,  performed 
their  parts,  and  the  fact  that  the  Supreme 
Court,  in  so  many  words,  handed  down  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  of  wage-slavery:  The 
workers  have  no  rights  their  masters  are  bound 
to  respect. 

While  strikes  seem  to  be  clumsy  weapons  in 
the  arsenal  of  the  workers,  in  consideration  of 
the  money  spent,  the  sacrifices  endured  and  the 
frequency  of  failure,  their  importance  should 
not  be  underestimated.  They  have  that  price- 
less educational  value  that  comes  only  from  ex- 
perience. They  implant  in  the  toilers  the 
feeling  of  solidarity  and  concern  for  a  common 
cause ;  in  tying  up  an  industry,  they  show  by  a 
stroke  that  labor  alone  is  indispensable  for  the 
welfare  of  society.  In  breaking  the  continuity 
of  their  humdrum  existence,  opportunity  is 
offered  to  the  workers  to  clear  their  lungs  of 
factory  grime,  to  loaf  their  souls  in  the  sun- 
shine, to  learn  that  there  is  a  life  outside  of 


THE   CLASS   STRUGGLE  59 

that  of  the  noise  of  machinery,  to  listen  to  the 
song  of  brooks  and  books,  to  be  something 
more  than  dirt  under  the  industrial  juggernaut. 
And  especially  to  learn  the  lesson  that  the 
labor  question  is  a  political  question. 

Here  it  would  be  well  to  mention  two 
matters.  It  is  only  by  the  broadening  of  their 
mental  horizon  that  the  workers  fit  themselves 
to  cope  with  the  critical  situations  that  must 
arise  in  the  passing  of  capitalism  and  the 
coming  of  Socialism.  In  such  days  the  workers 
will  profit  by  the  tragedy  of  the  Paris  Com- 
mune where,  because  of  a  constellation  of  in- 
cidents, due  to  being  unprepared  and  mis- 
judging the  nature  of  their  enemy,  the  first 
attempt  of  the  workers  at  self-rule  was 
drowned  in  a  sea  of  their  blood.  Secondly, 
with  the  complete  ascendency  of  the  capitalist 
class,  intellectual  progress  ceases  or,  worse 
still,  degenerates  into  intellectual  prostitution. 
Carnegie  libraries,  bearing  the  stain  of  Home- 
stead, fawn  upon  the  searcher  after  knowledge. 
To  the  workers,  therefore,  falls  the  mantle  of 
culture,  as  well  as  that  of  economics.  It  is 
for  them  to  decide  the  destiny  of  the  arts  and 
sciences,  as  of  governments  and  nations. 

It  is  because  the  workers  must  be  aware  of 
these  facts,  aware  of  their  position  as  the  de- 
pendent class,  aware  that  they  are  involved  in 
a  class  struggle  and  must  strike  for  freedom  as 
a  class,  that  so  much  emphasis  is  placed  by 
the  Socialist  upon  class  consciousness.  This 
does  not  mean  that  only  those  who  are  of  the 
working  class  can  understand  the  toilers'  posi- 


60  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

tion,  their  attitude  and  movement,  nor,  carry- 
ing this  idea  further,  that  only  the  most  de- 
graded, most  destitute  and  most  enslaved  sec- 
tion of  the  working  class  can  adequately  ex- 
press the  ideals  of  the  coming  democracy.  In 
respect  to  the  latter,  quite  the  contrary  is  true. 
Whatever  shortcoming  may  mark  the  attempt 
upon  the  part  of  those  from  the  upper  class  to 
view  social  relations  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
lower  class,  the  cause  of  the  toiler  would  in- 
deed be  hopeless  if  it  depended  upon  the 
lowest  element,  the  dregs  of  the  slums.  But 
it  does  mean  that,  allowing  for  all  personal 
equations,  a  certain  tendency  is  crystallizing  in 
the  working  class,  an  attitude  of  dissatisfaction 
with  and  opposition  to  present  property  re- 
lations, that  refuses  to  accept  the  ethical  codes 
of  the  ruling  class  and  existing  order,  that 
weighs  civilization  not  by  what  is  but  by  what 
might  be,  that  sounds  the  note  not  of  content 
but  of  discontent,  that  has  as  its  aim  the  con- 
trol of  government  and  industry  by  the  world's 
workers.  It  is  this  tendency,  this  thought  and 
attitude,  that  we  call  the  class-consciousness  of 
the  working  class. 

In  past  times  the  working  class  did  the 
fighting  for  the  other  classes.  Today  in- 
dividuals, who  are  not  strictly  speaking  of  the 
working  class,  throw  their  fortune  in  with  the 
toilers.  This  is  especially  true  of  men  engaged 
in  the  professions,  small  business  and  agri- 
culture, the  so-called  middle  class.  Farmers 
join  forces  with  the  industrial  workers,  country 
unites  with  city,  against  their  common  enemy, 


THE  CLASS   STRUGGLE  61 

the  plutocracy.     The  nucleus  of  the  army  of 

revolt  consists  of  the  workers  of  the  highly 
centralized  industries,  because  the  very  nature 
of  their  labor  cultivates  the  spirit  of  solidarity. 
Nor  is  the  class  struggle  confined  to  one 
country.  In  every  land  where  capitalism  lifts 
its  head,  irrespective  of  the  form  of  govern- 
ment, creeds  or  races,  there  the  modern  class 
war  rages,  there  the  crack  of  the  militiaman's 
rifle  is  heard,  there  the  jail  door  swings  open 
for  the  worker,  there  the  courts  are  invoked  to 
bind  and  gag  the  striker — and  there  is  a  branch 
of  the  international  Socialist  movement.  Slowly ' 
the  giant  Labor  bestirs  himself.  He  is  no 
longer  blind.  He  has  found  his  eyes.  Over  the 
bosom  of  the  earth  sweeps  the  spirit  of  the 
Social  Revolution.  Beneath  the  red  flag,  with 
the  feeling  that  when  they  free  themselves  they 
free  all  humanity,  rally  the  forces  of  the 
coming  democracy,  hearkening  to  the  clarion 
call  first  sounded  by  Marx  and  Engels: 
"Workers  of  all  countries,  unite.  You  have 
nothing  to  lose  but  your  chains:  You  have  a 
world  to  gain !" 


CHAPTER  V 

HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM 

Man  is  declared  to  be  what  heredity  and  en- 
vironment make  him.  Of  these  two  factors, 
so  far  as  the  individual  goes,  heredity  is  con- 
stant, environment  varies.  While  no  man 
can  alter  his  heredity,  environment  is  ever 
changing.  Environment  is,  besides,  the  more 
important  factor  and  helps  shape  the  heredity 
of  the  future.  This  is  admitted  by  people  of 
all  schools  of  thought.  Otherwise  there  would 
be  no  reason  in  their  practical  proposals.  We 
must,  then,  ascertain  what  part  of  the  environ- 
ment exercises  the  greatest  influence  on  the 
individual  and  society,  and  what  influences  are 
at  work  changing  the  environment. 

"Self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature," 
say  the  scientists.  To  satisfy  hunger,  protect 
the  body  and  shelter  it  from  the  elements,  to 
obtain  a  livelihood — that  is  the  first  considera- 
tion in  human  society  as  in  the  animal  king- 
dom. However  unromantic  it  may  be,  our 
physical  requirements  must  be  attended  to 
first  of  all.  The  material  comes  before  the 
mental,  the  practical  sways  the  theoretical. 

In  every  period  of  history,  therefore,  the 
means  employed  to  secure  a  livelihood,  and  the 
social  relations  which  necessarily  followed, 

02 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  63 

produced  in  great  part,  the  ideas  and  tendencieb 
of  the  time.  As  people  altered  the  method 
of  winning  their  existence,  so  their  relations 
and  theories  changed.  An  examination  of  the 
trend  of  institutions,  whether  political,  philos- 
ophical or  social,  shows  that  the  changes  they 
have  undergone  can  be  accounted  for  only  by 
referring  to  the  changes  in  material  conditions. 
This  is  historical  materialism,  or  economic 
determinism,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  another 
of  the  discoveries  of  Karl  Marx. 

Here  is  the  oft-quoted  statement  of  Marx: 
"The  mode  of  production  in  material  life  deter- 
mines the  general  character  of  the  social, 
political  and  spiritual  processes  of  life.  It  is 
not  the  consciousness  of  men  that  deter- 
mines their  existence  but,  on  the  contrary, 
their  social  existence  determines  their  con- 
sciousness. At  a  certain  stage  of  their  develop- 
ment, the  material  forces  of  production  in  so- 
ciety come  in  conflict  with  the  existing  re- 
lations of  production,  or — what  is  but  a  legal 
expression  of  the  same  thing — with  the  proper- 
ty relations  within  which  they  had  been  at 
work  before.  From  forms  of  development  of 
the  forces  of  production  these  relations  turn 
into  their  fetters.  Then  comes  the  period  of 
social  revolution.  With  the  change  of  the 
economic  foundation  the  entire  immense  super- 
structure is  more  or  less  rapidly  transformed." 

We  need  hardly  caution  the  reader  against 
the  fallacy  that  an  individual's  notions  are 
determined  by  his  own  economic  condition. 
We  are  dealing  with  man  collectively,  in  so- 


64  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

ciety,  and  society  has  laws  peculiar  to  itself, 
laws  governing  its  motion  which  are  affected 
very  little  by  the  independent  ideas  and  actions 
of  individuals. 

Let  us  also  hasten  to  say  that  the  material 
is  not  the  only  factor-  It  is  the  first  factor  and 
the  foremost  one,  but  there  are  others.  True 
enough  is  it  that  all  factors  except  the  material, 
taken  together,  cannot  explain  the  evolution  of 
society,  while  material  conditions  alone  can  do 
so,  although  very  roughly.  In  practice,  material 
conditions  exert  the  preponderating  influence, 
while  the  other  factors  serve  largely  to  temper 
or  intensify  that  influence. 

Historical  materialism  does  not  eliminate 
these  factors.  It  embraces  them,  although  it 
does  discount  the  importance  usually  assigned 
them  by  other  tRinkers.  The  Socialist  can  say 
with  the  poet: 

"I  hold  the  world  but  as  the  world,  Gratiano; 
A  stage  where  every  man  must  play  a  part." 

Generally  speaking,  we  are  concerned  with 
the  part  each  man  plays  only  insofar  as  his 
part  is  a  more  or  less  common  one.  We  are 
interested,  especially,  in  ideas  and  movements 
of  a  general  character,  such  as  are  a  social 
quantity,  signifying  that  a  social  cause  has 
brought  them  into  being.  We  do  not  deny 
that  there  have  been  great  men,  "heroes,"  as 
Carlyle  calls  them,  men  who  seem  to  be  in- 
tellectual giants  by  comparison  with  their 
fellow  men.  But  even  these  "heroes"  did  not 


HISTORICAX,  MATERIALISM  65 

create  themselves.  They  are  not  the  result  of 
"spontaneous  creation."  Like  everybody  else, 
they  issue  from  the  womb  of  time  and  are 
under  obligation  to  circumstances  for  pretty 
much  all  they  are.  However  encyclopedic  their 
minds,  however  colossal  their  genius,  their 
greatness  comes  out  of  the  material  at  hand. 
"One  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,"  and 
one  great  man  does  not,  single  handed,  make 
history.  Napoleon  said  of  himself:  "I  have 
always  marched  with  the  opinions  of  great 

masses  and  with  events I  am  the  creature 

of  circumstances."  We  all  recognize  the  im- 
portance of  historical  conditions  when  we  say : 
"This  man  was  wise  in  his  day  and  genera- 
tion." Conditions  make  the  man  of  the  hour, 
a  great  deal  more  so  than  the  man  of  the  hour 
modifies  conditions. 

Nor  need  it  be  denied  that  much  of  history 
may  be  regarded  as  a  conflict  between  de- 
mocracy and  aristocracy.  Yet  probing  a  little 
deeper  will  show  that  material  conditions, 
in  the  greatest  measure,  decfded  whether  that 
conflict  took  a  religious,  political  or  economic 
turn. 

'.Historical  materialism  does  not  imply  that 
the  institutions  of  every  epoch  are  bound  to 
assume  the  same  shape  and  pass  through  the 
same  process  of  development  all  over  the 
world.  Progress  may  be  retarded  or  ac- 
celerated according  to  the  peculiarities, 
customs  and  traditions  of  a  people.  More  than 
that,  to  quote  Kautsky :  "Every  method  of  pro- 


66  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

duction  is  connected  not  only  with  particular 
tools  and  particular  social  relations,  but  also 
with  the  particular  content  of  knowledge,  with 
particular  powers  of  intelligence,  a  particular 
view  of  cause  and  effect,  a  particular  logic,  in 
short,  a  particular  form  of  thought."  So,  many 
a  workingman  to-day  imagines  he  is  living  in 
the  America  of  half  a  century  ago,  before  the 
rise  of  modern  industry — which  accounts  for 
his  voting  the  Republican  or  Democratic  ticket 
because  his  father  or  grandfather  did.  When 
the  ideas  of  the  working  class  catch  up  with 
existing  conditions,  there  will  probably  be  a 
social  revolution. 

Again,  as  Labriola  tells  us,  Italy  for  a  time 
fell  out  of  the  course  of  the  nations.  Japan,  on 
the  other  hand,  profited  by  the  experience  of 
other  countries;  it  is  possible,  although  not 
altogether  probable,  that  Russia  will  pass  from 
a  state  of  feudalism  into  Socialism  without 
experiencing  very  much  of  capitalism.  The 
Socialist  movements  of  different  countries  as- 
sume different  aspects,  although  they  are 
actuated  by  a  common  ideal. 

Xor  is  historical  materialism  a  new  panthe- 
ism, counting  the  hairs  of  one's  head  and 
watching  the  fall  of  a  sparrow.  It  is  satisfied 
with  explaining  the  questions  of  greater  mo- 
ment, tracing  the  evolution  of  society  from 
savagery  to  civilization,  explaining  political 
disturbances,  waves  of  reform  and  religion,  and 
the  rise  and  decline  of  philosophies  and  nations. 

Historical    materialism,    in    declaring    that 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  37 

ideas  change  with  the  change  in  material  con- 
ditions, runs  counter  to  the  theory  that  ideas 
create  themselves  or  are  lassoed  by  the  in- 
dividual out  of  the  sea  of  consciousness  which 
always  was  and  will  be.  It  also  runs  counter 
to  the  theory  that  certain  ideas  and  principles 
are  eternally  true,  irrespective  of  time  and 
place.  As  Marx  says :  "Thus  these  ideas,  these 
categories,  are  not  more  eternal  than  the  rela- 
tions which  they  express.  They  are  historical 
and  transitor^  products."  This  is,  of  course, 
a  rude  shock  to  the  budding  philosophers  who, 
every  three  or  four  years,  rediscover  the  eternal 
principles  of  social  harmony.  But  that  cannot 
be  helped. 

It  is  by  the  test  of  history  that  the  theory 
of  historical  materialism  must  stand  or  fall. 
History  will  tell  us  whether  institutions  are 
transitory  and  in  what  degree  they  correspond 
to  the  methods  employed  in  securing  a  liveli- 
hood. 

For  example,  nowadays  we  are  asked  to  re- 
gard property  of  a  certain  kind  as  "private  and 
sacred."  Yet  this  was  not  always  so.  Lafargue 
tells  us  that  "a  citizen  of  'Sparta  was  entitled 
without  permission  to  ride  the  horses,  use  the 
dogs,  and  even  dispose  of  the  slaves  of  any 
other  Spartan."  Imagine  pursuing  the  chase 
with  the  dogs,  horses  and  servants  of  one  of 
our  social  bluebloods,  without  so  much  as  "by 
your  leave!"  As  to  the  ephemeral  nature  of 
property,  Atkinson,  the  American  economist, 
goes  so  far  as  to  say :  "The  only  capital  which 


68  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

is  of  permanent  value  is  immaterial — the  ex- 
perience of  generations  and  the  development 
of  science."  Indeed  not  only  is  right  in  the 
possession  of  things  not  eternal,  but  is  de- 
pendent upon  man-made  law.  So  Lafargue 
quotes  Locke,  the  English  philosopher :  "Where 
there  is  no  property  there  is  no  injustice." 
Cooley,  an  American  authority  upon  con- 
stitutional law,  declares :  "That  is  property 
which  is  recognized  as  such  by  law,  and 
nothing  else  is  or  can  be.  Property  and  law 
are  born  and  must  die  together.  Before  the 
laws  there  was  no  property,  take  away  the 
laws,  all  property  ceases."  Private  ownership, 
therefore,  is  not  something  perpetual,  but  is  a 
temporary  arrangement  subject  to  social  needs 
'On  this  point  Cooley  says :  "The  courts. . .  seem 
to  have  laid  down  the  broad  doctrine  that 
where  private  property  is  devoted  to  a  public 
use  it  is  subject  to  public  regulation."  Public 
necessity  has  gone  further  than  regulation.  In 
the  coal  strike  of  1902  several  mayors  con- 
fiscated carloads  of  coal  with  no  pretense  o\ 
according  the  owners  <rdue  process  of  law." 

Speaking  of  the  "sacredness"  of  private 
property,  the  following  utterance  is  interesting, 
in  that  it  concerns  a  notoriously  lawless  de- 
struction of  the  property  of  certain  eminently 
respectable  gentlemen.  The  reference  is  to  the 
Boston  Tea  Party.  "This  is  the  most  magni- 
ficent movement  of  all.  There  is  a  dignity,  a 
majesty,  a  sublimity  in  this  last  effort  of  the 
patriots  that  I  greatly  admire This  de- 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  69 

struction  of  the  tea  is  so  bold,  so  daring,  so 
fixed,  so  intrepid,  and  inflexible,  and  it  must 
have  so  important  consequences  and  so  lasting, 
that  I  cannot  but  consider  it  an  epoch  in 
history."  This  attack  upon  the  sacredness  of 
private  property  was  not  the  deed  of  some 
sacrilegious  firebrand,  but  the  cold,  measured 
syllables  of  that  austere  Puritan  and  prim 
jurist,  John  Adams.  Again,  by  the  stroke  of  a 
pen,  Lincoln  confiscated  millions  of  dollars  of 
southern  property.  So  much  for  the  sacred- 
ness  of  property. 

Justice,  ethics,  equality,  liberty — all  these 
have  significance  only  as  regards  specific 
historical  conditions.  When  severed  from  those 
conditions  they  are  either  meaningless  or,  as 
often  as  not,  serve  reactionary  purposes. 
Labriola  sums  it  up  when  he  says :  "Ideas  do 
not  fall  from  heaven;  and,  what  is  more,  like 
the  other  products  of  human  activity,  they  are 
formed  in  given  circumstances,  in  the  precise 
fullness  of  time,  through  the  action  of  definite 
needs,  thanks  to  the  repeated  attempts  at  their 
satisfaction,  and  by  the  discovery  of  such  and 
such  other  means  of  proof  which  are,  as  it 
were,  the  instruments  of  their  production  and 
their  elaboration."  Thus  our  modern  unctuous 
moralists  tell  the  workers:  "Think  more  of 
your  duties  and  less  of  your  rights."  Which  is 
exquisite  slave  economy.  Thus  a  professor  of 
political  economy  recently  ventured  the  opinion 
that  the  labor  problem  might  be  solved  if 
married  women,  together  with  their  husbands, 


70  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

went  to  work.  Which,  under  present  con- 
ditions, is  either  irony  or  impudence,  and  a 
fair  sample  of  non-Socialist  economy.  What 
influence  material  conditions  exert  upon  creeds 
is  witnessed  in  the  decline  in  America  of  Ju- 
daism, the  faith  of  a  people  who  have  hereto- 
fore preserved  their  race  identity  despite 
centuries  of  persecution. 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  "when  poverty 
comes  in  at  the  door,  love  flies  out  the  win- 
dow." That  marriage  is  not  necessarily  a  moral 
and  spiritual  union  Professor  Seligman  shows, 
when  he  says :  "The  earliest  division  of  labor 
rests  on  the  principle  that  the  female  attends 
to  the  vegetable  sustenance,  the  man  to  the 
animal  diet,  and  on  this  fundamental  distinc- 
tion all  the  other  social  arrangements  are  built 
up.  Marriage,  for  a  long  time,  is  not  an  ethical 
community  of  ideal  interests,  but  very  largely 
an  economic  or  labor  relation."  It  has  been 
observed  that  the  number  of  marriages  fluctu- 
ates with  the  price  of  food.  The  agitation 
against  race-suicide  springs  from  an  economic 
motive. 

Behind  those  companions  in  iniquity  and 
hypocrisy,  "our  manifest  destiny"  and  "benev- 
olent assimilation" — at  the  point  of  the  bayonet 
— lurk  economic  interests.  Such  men  as  Carl 
Schurz  and  Wendell  Phillips  knew  this.  Schurz 
saw  that  the  Civil  War  was  a  conflict  between 
the  industrial  ambitions  of  the  North  and  the 
South,  between  cotton  and  iron.  And  Phillips 
said :  "It  is  not  always,  however,  ideas  or  moral 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  71 

principles  that  push  the  world  forward.  Selfish 
interests  play  a  large  part  in  the  work.  Our 
Revolution  of  1776  succeeded  because  trade 
and  wealth  joined  hands  with  principle  and 
enthusiasm — a  union  rare  in  the  history  of 
revolutions.  Northern  merchants  fretted  at 
England's  refusal  to  allow  them  direct  trade 
with  Holland  and  the  West  Indies.  Virginia 
planters,  heavily  mortgaged,  welcomed  any- 
thing which  would  postpone  payment  of  their 
debts — a  motive  that  doubtless  avails  largely 
among  Secessionists  now."  Loria  declares  that 
statistics  prove  258  out  of  286  wars  to  be 
distinctly  due  to  economic  causes,  while  in  the 
remainder,  apparently  fought  on  religious 
grounds,  economic  influences  were  at  work  but 
obscured.  And  Professor  Seth  Low,  among 
others,  at  a  congress  of  the  American  Academy 
of  Political  and  Social  Science,  in  1905,  de- 
clared that  all  wars  are  commercial  in  origin. 
Every  important  change  in  the  method  of 
securing  a  living  is  accompanied  by  a  class 
struggle  in  which  a  new  class  or  a  class  former- 
ly subordinate  forces  itself  to  the  front.  The 
class  character  of  society,  indicated  in  all  in- 
stitutions, is  especially  evident  in  examining 
legislation.  When  we  declare  that  Pennsyl- 
vania is  the  property  of  the  railroad  of  that 
name,  we  do  not  mean  that  most  of  its  officials 
are  on  the  payroll  of  the  corporation.  Some 
probably  are,  as  recent  disclosures  show,  just 
as  the  Chicago  University  is  coming  to  be  con- 
sidered a  by-product  of  Standard  Oil.  We 


7J  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

mean  that,  wittingly  or  not,  the  interests  of 
that  railroad  are  so  well  served  by  the  legis- 
lators of  Pennsylvania  as  to  make  it  appear 
that  this  is  their  primary  reason  for  holding 
office. 

The  attitude  toward  tariff  legislation  has 
undergone  an  interesting  transformation.  In 
the  early  days  John  C.  Calhoun,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, voted  for  protection  for  the  South.  When 
the  manufacturing  class  of  the  North  came 
into  control,  they  became  the  ardent  advocates 
of  a  high  tariff.  For  years  the  policy  of  the 
government  was,  practically,  to  "stand  pat." 
Now  that  capital  is  becoming  international, 
reciprocity  and  tariff  revision  are  on  the  carpet. 
The  more  capital  extends  its  grip  inter- 
nationally the  surer  the  tendency  toward  free 
trade.  In  the  same  way  public  opinion  in  re- 
gard to  the  trust  has  changed.  In  the  days  of 
Mark  Hanna,  "there  were  no  trusts."  Later, 
there  were  "good  trusts  and  bad  trusts."  We 
are  already  at  the  point  when  large  invest- 
ments are  immune,  when  President  Roosevelt 
permitted  the  Steel  Trust  to  assimilate  the 
Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company  and  in- 
formed the  Senate  that  it  was  none  of  their 
business.  Competition  is  no  longer  the  life  of 
trade.  Trade  is  the  death  of  competition. 

Reform  measures  also  depend  upon  circum- 
stance. Very  often  the  demand  of  a  subjugated 
class  is  conceded  by  the  ruling  class,  because 
the  latter  profits  by  the  measure.  For 
example,  rate  legislation  and  federal  licensing 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  73 

of  corporations.  In  the  days  of  competition 
which  existed  some  generations  ago,  but  not 
since,  uniform  rate  legislation  might  have  se- 
cured equity  among  common  carriers  and,  by 
preventing  discrimination,  might  have  inter- 
fered with  the  tendency  toward  trustification. 
But  today,  when  the  larger  industries  are 
monopolistic  and  inter-related,  a  uniform  rate, 
especially  if  high  enough, — and  federal  com- 
missions are  advocates  of  higher  rates — would 
complete  the  work  of  driving1  men  of  small 
means  out  of  business,  while  changing  only  the 
pocket  into  which  the  general  profits  would 
flow  for  the  trusts.  So  federal  licensing  of  cor- 
porations means  that  the  federal  government 
lends  its  hand  to  large  enterprise,  because  only 
large  enterprise  does  a  national  busines,  thus 
protecting  it  against  the  encroachment  of  such 
state  legislatures  as  happen  to  be  in  control  of 
its  enemies. 

The  class  character  of  society  is  more  pro- 
nounced as  between  the  capitalist  class  and  the 
working  class.  Thus,  to  take  something  with- 
out rendering  an  equivalent  is  purely  a  class 
wrong.  For  a  worker  to  snatch  a  loaf  of  bread 
to  appease  his  hunger  is  punishable  and 
punished  by  law ;  for  a  capitalist  to  exploit  the 
same  worker  mercilessly  is  good  business.  Be- 
cause the  worker  is  a  producer,  dealing  with 
the  realities  of  life,  laboring  with  Mother  Earth 
to  minister  to  the  comfort  of  the  race,  his  con- 
ceptions are  generally  antagonistic  to  those  of 
the  ruling  class,  who  render  no  useful  service 
and  whose  privilege  is  based  upon  legal  fiction. 


74  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

Here  many  able  men  who  consider  themselves 
exponents  of  Marxian  historical  materialism, 
Professor  Seligman  among  them,  fall  short  of 
the  mark.  For  historical  materialism  explains 
how  historical  materialism  came  to  be. 

We  need  not  pause  to  consider  the  school 
book  notion  that  history  writing  is  an  accurate 
record  of  events.  To  be  something  more  than 
chronology,  events  must  be  interpreted,  ar- 
ranged as  to  cause  and  effect.  And  second 
thought  will  convince  even  the  school  child 
that  the  stirring  times  of  1776  have  heretofore 
made  an  entirely  different  impression  upon 
American  as  against  English  historians.  In 
the  higher  schools  the  unscientific  method  is 
rapidly  becoming  obsolete.  It  is  recognized 
that  the  writing  of  history  does  depend  upon 
the  standpoint  of  the  historian.  It  was,  there- 
fore, no  accidental  coincidence,  as  Professor 
Seligman  thinks,  that  Marx,  who  stood  political 
economy  right  side  up,  should  turn  right  side 
up  the  philosophy  of  history  and  become  a  So- 
cialist. That  is  why  in  Marx  the  theories  of 
surplus  value,  class  struggle  and  historical 
materialism  are  co-ordinated  and  united;  that 
is  why  historical  materialism,  in  its  fullest  and 
completest  sense — its  only  proper  sense — is  the 
method  and  the  weapon  of  the  working  class, 
coming  only  with  the  rise  of  the  modern  labor 
movement.  That  is  why  Marx  and  Engels 
were  Socialists,  instead  of  closet  philosophers, 
why  they  were  the  guiding  spirits  in  the  first 
international  organization  of  the  working 
class,  why  they  were  able  to  map  out  in  the 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  75 

rough  the  line  of  march    the  working    class 
movement  has  since  taken  and  is  taking. 

But  if  the  professor's  tendency  is  to  castrate 
historical  materialism,  by  depriving  it  of  its 
revolutionary  character  and  its  corollary,  the 
class  struggle,  in  an  attempt  to  make  the 
theory  more  "moderate,"  Loria  goes  him  one 
better  as  an  "extremist"  in  the  other  direction. 
So  Loria  says:  "Capitalist  property  is  not  a 
natural  phenomenon  but  a  violation  of  law, 
both  human  and  divine — the  impossible  erected 
into  a  system."  With  Loria,  as  with  many 
non-Socialists,  the  "unnatural"  is  here  in  full 
bloom.  Which  is  perfectly  natural — for  Loria. 
Well,  as  capitalist  property  is  "unnatural"  and 
"a  violation  of  law,  both  human  and  divine," 
the  sooner  it  goes  the  better,  one  would  sup- 
pose. But,  naturally  or  otherwise,  Loria 
argues  the  contrary.  "In  the  first  place  there  is 
abundant  opportunity  to  ameliorate  the 
sanitary  and  economic  condition  of  the  poorer 
classes  without  in  the  least  interfering  with 
the  rights  of  property,  and  measures  of  this 
kind  are  in  no  way  excluded  by  our  theory." 
For  Loria,  capitalist  property,  which  came 
into  being  by  the  violation  of  law  and  ethics, 
is  nevertheless  sacred,  and  his  plans  for  amel- 
iorating the  condition  of  the  workers  do  not  in 
the  least  interfere  with  the  "rights  of  proper- 
ty." The  only  ray  of  hope  he  holds  out  is  this : 
"The  bipartition  of  the  revenues  is  the  salva- 
tion of  the  proletariat."  The  workers,  conse- 
quently, can  find  relief  only  in  keeping  the 
landed  aristocracy  and  the  capitalist  class  at 


7ft  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

each  other's  throats.  What  the  working  class 
are  to  do  when  landed  aristocrats  and  capital- 
ists together  clutch  the  workers'  throats,  Loria 
does  not  say.  Nor  does  Loria  consider  that 
the  working  class,  who  are  the  most  numerous 
class  and  socially  the  most  necessary  class, 
might  decide  to  rid  themselves  both  of  land- 
lords and  capitalists.  Loria  and  Professor 
Seligman  occupy  a  position  as  regards 
historical  interpretation  similar  to  that  of 
Feuerbach  in  philosophy.  Backward  they  are 
historical  materialists;  forward,  ideologists. 

Historical  materialism  not  only  accounts  for 
itself,  as  well  as  for  the  rise  of  contrary 
theories,  but  foretells  its  own  passing.  For  it 
may  be  said  with  some  assurance  that  with  the 
end  of  capitalism,  the  influence  of  material 
conditions  on  society  will  be  reduced  to  a  mini- 
mum. Marx's  method,  the  examination  of 
events  and  ideas  by  the  light  of  historical  fact 
instead  of  fancy,  will  likely  endure  much 
longer. 

Meanwhile  the  'Socialist  goes  about  his  busi- 
ness of  studying  the  anatomy  of  present  so- 
ciety, interpreting  history  and  organizing  the 
working  class  for  the  coming  change. 

For  historical  materialism  is  not  a  form  of 
fatalism.  Not  only  does  it  recognize  the  in- 
fluence of  intellectual  forces,  but  declares 
that  their  importance  grows  with  time.  To  be 
aware  of  the  direction  and  rate  of  the  power 
moving  socety,  to  be  conscious  of  the  necessity 
for  class  action,  is  the  duty  imposed  upon  the 
workers.  So  it  is  that  as  the  Socialist  move- 


HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM  77 

ment  grows  and  makes  progress,  more  and 
more  does  it  display  its  class  character.  And 
because  of  this  fact  can  we  say:  Socialism  is 
inevitable ! 

That,  too,  explains  why  historical  material- 
ism has  come  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
formidable  weapons  in  the  arsenal  of  the  So- 
cialist. With  its  aid  will  the  mission  of  the 
workers  to  conquer  the  productive  forces  be 
accomplished,  so  that  thereafter  intellect  will 
control  destiny  and  society  will  consciously 
mold  its  environment. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE 

Man  is  not  the  product  of  social  conditions 
alone.  He  is  a  human  being,  and  traces  of  the 
lower  animals  are  still  very  decided  in  him. 
As  a  human  being,  albeit  endowed  with  con- 
siderably more  mentality  than  the  other 
animals,  he  has  tried  to  explain  the  physical 
universe  about  him  with  mingled  fear,  wonder 
and  perplexity.  He  has  worshipped  the  sun, 
moon,  other  animals,  his  own  organs  and  idols. 
He  has  imagined  his  gods  to  inhabit  everything 
that  grows,  the  elements,  and  the  vast  firma- 
ment that  transcends  his  powers  of  conception. 
He  celebrates  by  fast  or  feast  such  perennial 
phenomena  as  the  coming  of  the  seasons.  He 
greets  sunrise  and  sunset  with  prayer  and  is  in 
the  throes  of  the  problem  of  immortality.  And 
these  things  exert  no  little  influence  in  shaping 
customs,  traditions  and  traits  of  character; 
they  make  no  little  impression  upon  social  ar- 
rangements. 

Progress  along  this  line  is  made  by  finding 
a  natural  explanation  for  what  was  formerly 
deemed  supernatural.  Science  replaces  faith. 
Knowledge  ousts  superstition. 

"Science,"  say  the  scientists,  "is  general 
knowledge  systematized."  Science  consists  of 

78 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE 


79 


properly  arranged  facts  and  theories  and  laws 
in  regard  to  what  passes  about  us. 

The  workingman  does  something  like  this 
at  his  bench  or  machine.  Thus,  before  weaving, 
it  is  necessary  to  sort  the  cotton  from  the  wool, 
material  of  one  texture  from  that  of  another, 
that  of  one  color  from  that  of  a  different  color, 
and  that  of  expensive  dye  from  that  of  an  in- 
ferior grade.  In  like  manner,  science  takes 
facts  that  are  generally  known,  or  should  be 
generally  known,  and  sorts  them  out  according 
to  the  points  of  resemblance  and  distinction. 

Science  regards  nothing  as  stationary. 
Everything  is  in  a  condition  of  flow ;  in  the 
moment  that  it  is  one  thing,  it  is  becoming 
something  else.  "The  present  is  the  child  of 
the  past,  but  it  is  the  parent  of  the  future."  As 
so  often  has  been  said,  the  only  thing  constant 
in  nature  is  the  law  of  perpetual  change. 

This  law  of  perpetual  change  we  see  in 
operation  all  about  us.  Mother  Earth  shrugs 
her  shoulders  and  mountain  ranges  rise  or  fall ; 
she  puckers  up  her  lips,  and  ocean  currents 
swerve  around  the  continents.  When  she  is 
cramped  for  room  and  stretches  herself,  there 
is  likely  to  be  an  earthquake  and  perhaps  tens 
of  thousands  of  lives  are  lost  and  cities  are 
demolished  in  a  twinkling.  Volcanoes  remain 
to  warn  man  of  the  restlessness  of  nature. 

But  while  everything  changes  its  form, 
nothing  is  ever  lost.  Life  and  death  are  com- 
panions throughout  existence,  the  crest  and 
trough  of  the  wave  of  time.  One  makes  way 
for  the  other.  What  perishes  fertilizes  what 


80  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

is  about  to  be  born;  the  dead,  by  giving  life  to 
the  living,  becomes  the  substance  of  the  living. 
Shakespeare  uses  this  idea  in  one  of  his  plays : 

"Hamlet.  A  man  may  fish  with  the  worm 
that  hath  eat  of  a  king,  and  eat  of  the  fish  that 
hath  fed  of  that  worm. 

King.    What  dost  thou  mean  by  this? 

Hamlet.  Nothing  but  to  show  you  how  a 
king  may  go  a  process  through  the  guts  of  a 
beggar." 

In  proof  that  we  are  related  to  all  about  us, 
Moore  declares  that  more  than  two-thirds  of 
the  weight  of  the  human  body  is  made  up  of 
oxygen,  a  gas  which  forms  one-fifth  of  the 
weight  of  the  air,  more  than  eight-ninths  of 
that  of  the  sea,  and  forty-seven  per  cent,  of 
the  superficial  solids  of  the  earth. 

'Nothing  is  constant.  Everything  changes. 
But  that  is  all  it  does.  Matter  may  be  shifted 
about,  but  it  cannot  be  lost.  And  however 
much  force  may  be  brought  into  play,  only  its 
form  is  altered.  It  is  not  destroyed.  So  far 
as  we  can  see,  the  matter  and  force  about  us 
have  always  been  and  will  always  be.  There 
was  no  beginning,  and  there  will  be  no  end. 
They  are  everlasting. 

This  old  earth  of  ours  has  been  changing  for 
quite  awhile.  Boelsche  thinks  it  is  a  million 
years  old.  And  there  is  no  telling  how  many 
millions  of  times  the  stuff  of  which  our  world 
is  made  was  the  stuff  of  other  worlds  or  stars. 
We  know  ours  was  not  the  first  or  the  last 
created.  Fitch  declares  that  it  is  only  a 
millionth  part  in  bulk  of  the  solar  system — our 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE  gl 

sun,  planets  and  their  moons — and  we  know 
that  the  solar  system  is  probably  only  a 
millionth  part  of  the  dust  of  the  heavens.  So 
that  our  ball  of  toil  and  trouble  is  only  a 
grain  in  the  celestial  sandstorm.  And  the  earth 
was  here  for  the  greater  part  of  its  million 
years  before  the  being  we  call  man  arrived. 
Again  quoting  Moore :  "Man  is  not  the  end,  he 
is  but  an  incident,  of  the  infinite  elaborations 
of  Time  and  Space." 

It  may  be  accepted  for  a  certainty  that  man 
was  not  created  as  man.  He  is  the  outcome  of 
animals  lower  in  the  scale,  which  fact  Darwin 
first  dwelt  upon.  Evidence  is  plentiful  on  this 
score.  Huxley,  in  "Man's  Place  in  Nature," 
tells  of  the  ties  between  man  and  the  manlike 
apes,  man's  next  of  kin.  Thus,  there  is  greater 
difference  among  men's  brains  than  there  is 
between  those  of  man  and  the  gorilla.  The 
difference  in  skull  and  skeleton  between  man 
and  the  gorilla  are  of  smaller  value  than  that 
between  the  gorilla  and  some  other  apes.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  dentition.  Man  in  the 
embryonical  stage  is  nearer  to  the  ape  than  the 
ape  is  to  the  dog.  Bebel  declares  that  monkeys 
are  the  only  beings,  besides  man,  in  whom  the 
sexual  impulse  is  not  fixed  to  certain  periods. 

The  process  of  the  human  embryo,  from  egg 
to  ego,  has  the  appearance  of  a  panorama  of 
the  biological  scale.  Dr.  Weisler,  in  his 
work  on  "Embryology,"  tells  us  that  at  the 
twenty-fifth  day  the  embryo  presents  a  well- 
developed  tail.  While  maternal  influences 
cease  at  the  second  week,  up  to  the  fourth 


82  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

week  the  heart  of  the  human  embryo  is  that 
which  is  the  permanent  condition  of  fishes. 
The  nails  begin  in  claw-like  projections.  In 
the  seventh  month,  the  lanugo,  or  embryonal 
down,  makes  its  appearance,  covers  the  surface 
of  practically  the  whole  body,  and  disappears 
in  the  eighth  month.  This  is  a  relic  of  the 
days  when  what  is  now  man  was  a  hair- 
covered  animal.  Fitch  gives  a  list  of  rudi- 
mentary organs,  which  were  once  useful  in  the 
animal  ancestors  of  man,  but  are  now  rather 
harmful.  Such  is  the  vermiform  appendix. 
Boelsche  declares  that  the  blood  of  the  chim- 
panzee may  be  mixed  with  that  of  man  with- 
out harm,  which  is  the  severest  test,  as  bloods 
of  different  species  act  as  poisons  toward  each 
other.  Boelsche  follows  the  clues  from  man, 
step  by  step,  down  to  the  very  beginning  of 
life,  the  primordial  cell. 

All  of  man's  organs  and  their  functions  hark 
back  to  the  remote  past.  "Life  was  born  blind, 
just  as  many  animals  are  to  this  day,  but  it 
was  gradually  prepared  for  sight,"  says  Dr. 
Meyer.  Scientists  go  even  further.  France 
declares :  "The  plant  possesses  everything  that 
distinguishes  a  living  creature — movement, 
sensation,  the  most  violent  reaction  against 
abuse,  and  most  ardent  gratitude  for  favors — 
if  we  will  but  take  sufficient  time  to  wait  with 
loving  patience  for  its  sweet  and  gentle 
answers  to  our  stormy  questions."  While 
rooted  to  the  ground  it  nevertheless  has  power, 
in  a  measure,  to  adapt  itself  to  external  agen- 
cies. It  feels  "light-hunger,"  not  unlike  the 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE  83 

light-hunger  in  man  which  Ibsen  makes  the 
climax  of  his  great  morbid  play  "Ghosts." 
Again,  more  than  five  hundejd  varieties  of 
plants  devour  insects.  Plants  also  have  a  re- 
fined sense  of  smell,  taste  and  location;  there 
is  the  beginning  of  a  nervous  system,  and  a 
tendency  toward  division  of  labor,  instinct, 
perception  and  soul.  So  France  concludes : 
"Even  if  all  our  hopes  are  not  realized,  we 
have  brought  away  a  mighty  knowledge  that 
reaches  down  into  the  very  depth  of  all  being! 
the  certainty  that  the  life  of  the  plants  is  one 
with  that  of  animals,  and  with  that  of  our- 
selves." 

It  is  difficult  to  draw  a  sharp  line  between 
man  and  the  other  animals.  Grant  Allen,  in 
the  "New  Hedonism,"  thinks  that  what 
elevates  man  above  his  fellow  creatures 
is  ethics,  intellect  and  the  sense  of  beauty.  Yet 
it  is  quite  certain  that  many  birds  find  con- 
siderable enjoyment  in  a  harmonious  color 
scheme,  while  savages  are  not  very  far 
superior  to  the  ingenious  animals,  such  as  the 
ant,  in  ethics  and  intellect.  Franklin  called 
man  the  tool-using  animal.  And  while  Kautsky 
declases  that,  "Neither  as  a  thinking  nor  as  a 
moral  being  is  man  essentially  different  from 
the  animals,"  he  goes  on  to  say  that  "what, 
however,  alone  distinguishes  the  former  is  the 
production  of  tools,  which  serve  for  production, 

for  defence  or  attack With  the  production 

of  the  means  of  production,  the  animal  man 
begins  to  become  the  human  man;  with  that 
he  breaks  away  from  the  animal  world  to  found 


84  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

his  own  empire,  an  empire  with  its  own  kind 
of  development,  which  is  wholly  unknown  in 
the  rest  of  nature,  and  to  which  nothing  similar 
is  to  be  found  there." 

Everything  changes.  Man  has  evolved  out 
of  lower  animals,  and  the  plants  are  likely  his 
distant  relatives.  Arthur  Morrow  Lewis 
sketches  the  modern  theories  of  organic  trans- 
formation in  this  wise :  "Lamarck  was  the  first 
to  present  the  theory  of  evolution  in  a 
thoroughly  scientific  manner.  Then  Darwin 
discovered  the  great  principle  which  rules  the 
evolution  of  organisms ;  the  principle  of 
'natural  selection.'  Then  Weismann  repudiated 
current  ideas  as  to  how  the  fittest  'arrived,'  or 
'originated/  and  presented  in  their  place  a 
theory  of  his  own,  which  is  still  under  dis- 
cussion. De  Vries  raised  the  question  as  to 
whether  new  species  'arrive'  by  a  gradual  ac- 
cumulation of  tiny  changes,  or  by  sudden  leaps 
• — mutations — and  demonstrated  the  latter  by 
his  experiments  with  the  evening  primrose." 

Darwin's  theory,  regarded  as  epoch-making 
in  science,  is :  Natural  selection  by  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Or, 
as  it  is  commonly  put,  nature  performs  her 
wonders  through  the  desire  for  food  and  off- 
spring, hunger  and  love.  It  is  the  special  merit 
of  Darwin  that  his  theory  was  the  first  satis- 
factory attempt  to  interpret  the  activity  of 
organic  beings,  and  to  explain  why  they 
change.  And  Lester  F.  Ward  tells  us :  "Science 
is  mainly  interpretation." 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE  85 

The  question  of  interpretation  is  a  very 
broad  one.  It  flows  out  of  many  things.  Thus 
Darwin  acknowledges  he  was  influenced  by 
the  now  discredited  theory  of  Malthus  that 
more  human  beings  are  born  than  sustenance 
can  be  provided  for.  Both  Darwin  and 
Malthus,  in  turn,  were  influenced  in  their  inter- 
pretation by  such  circumstances  as  the  con- 
dition of  England  of  their  time.  So  that,  to- 
day, the  Malthusian  theory  is  practically 
abandoned,  while  the  Darwinian  theory  has 
been  amplified  in  many  directions.  Thus, 
Kropotkin  shows  the  importance  of  "mutual 
aid"  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  repudiating 
the  notion  that  it  is  a  struggle  of  each  against 
all. 

Herbert  Spencer  first  formulated  a  theory 
of  evolution  that  embraced  the  many  fields 
covered  by  science.  He  declares  evolution  to 
consist  of  the  "integration  of  matter  and  con- 
comitant dissipation  of  motion;  during  which 
the  matter  passes  from  an  indefinite  incoherent 
homogeneity  to  a  definite  coherent  hetero- 
geneity ;  and  during  which  the  retained  motion 
undergoes  a  parallel  transformation."  This  is 
all-inclusive,  but  gives  no  hint  of  the  particular 
laws  of  development  governing  one  science  as 
against  another,  astronomy  as  against  physics, 
or  biology  as  against  sociology.  And  a  very 
serious  mistake  is  made  in  imagining  that 
laws  belonging  to  one  science  apply  equally  to 
another.  This  is  especially  so  of  biology, 
organic  science,  and  sociology,  social  science. 


86  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

While  man,  as  an  individual,  belongs  with  the 
other  forms  of  life ;  man,  the  social  being,  has 
made  a  departure  from  the  other  forms  along 
independent  lines.  In  one  case  evolution  is 
a  spiral  that  rises  back  of  the  lowly  worm 
and  sweeps  upward  in  ever  widening  curves 
until  it  embraces  the  universe;  in  the  other 
case,  it  begins  in  savagery,  moves  upward 
through  barbarism  and  civilization  to  en^ 
lightenment. 

The  names  of  Darwin  and  Spencer  must  be 
bracketed  with  that  of  Marx.  If  science  is 
mainly  interpretaton,  let  it  be  remembered 
that  the  same  year  Darwin's  "Origin  of 
Species'"  appeared,  1859,  Marx,  in  his  "Contri- 
bution to  the  Critique  of  Political  Economy," 
first  fully  formulated  his  theory  of  historical 
materialism,  and  employed  it  to  trace  the  de- 
velopment of  a  number  of  economic  theories. 
And  historical  materialism  not  only  interprets 
the  intricate  phenomena  of  social  evolution, 
but  also  accounts  for  the  intellectual  super- 
structure, explaining,  for  instance,  the  rise  of 
the  Darwinian  school.  For  this  reason  modern 
Socialism  is  called  scientific.  It  does  not  de- 
tract from  the  glory  of  any  of  these  three 
giants  of  thought  to  group  them  together,  as 
Ferri  has  done. 

Just  as  the  biologist  declares  that  nothing 
happens  by  accident,  that  every  phenomenon 
answers  to  the  test  of  cause  and  effect,  that  the 
manifestation  we  call  free  will  is  dependent 
upon  everything  else,  so  the  Socialist  declares 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE  87 

that  nothing  happens  by  chance  in  society,  that 
all  is  part  of  a  more  or  less  well  ascertained 
process  making  for  better  social  order.  Just 
as  the  biologist  refuses  to  ignore  the  struggle 
for  existence,  but  declares  this  to  be  a  very 
important  fact  in  biology,  so  the  Socialist  re- 
fuses to  overlook  the  struggle  of  classes  in 
society,  but  declares  this  to  be  its  most  im- 
portant fact.  Just  as  the  biologist  traces  the 
descent  of  man,  shows  how  intimately  he  is 
related  to  his  next  of  kin  in  the  animal 
province,  and  declares  that  man  partakes  of 
what  there  is  in  his  ancestors  down  to  the 
primordial  cell,  so  the  Socialist  traces  the  evo- 
lution of  society,  showing  that  institutions  are 
largely  the  reflex  of  material  needs,  and  that 
one  social  system  makes  way  for  another. 

Science,  like  the  Socialist  movement,  is  in- 
ternational. It  is  no  respecter  of  person  or 
place.  Under  a  certain  atmospheric  pressure 
and  temperature,  vapor  condenses  into  rain. 
It  does  so  in  America ;  it  does  so  in  China.  To 
exploit  labor,  the  means  of  production  must  be 
owned  as  private  property.  It  is  so  in  America ; 
it  is  so  in  China.  Because  like  causes  produce 
like  results,  when  an  industrial  depression  sets 
in  over  the  world,  we  know  it  is  not  due  to  the 
perversity  of  a  few  Wall  street  bankers,  but 
to  international  unpaid  labor. 

So  we  know  that  some  tremendous  force 
was  at  work  when,  for  example,  the  generation 
that  saw  the  end  of  the  19th  century  witnessed 
the  inauguration  of  the  factory  system,  political 


88  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

disturbances  in  America  and  France,  new  de- 
partures in  economics,  medicine,  treatment  of 
the  insane,  criminology,  psychology,  philosophy 
and  science.  Historical  materialism  declares 
that  the  primary  cause  was  the  clash  between 
the  rising  capitalists,  whose  right  bower 
science  then  was,  and  the  feudal  aristocracy. 
Again,  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  when  the 
revolutions  of  1848  placed  the  capitalist  class 
completely  on  the  throne,  there  was  an  impetus 
given  to  science  that  brought  forth  the  theory 
of  organic  evolution,  and  that  also  brought 
forth  the  scientists  of  the  working  class  with 
the  theory  of  social  evolution.  And  just  as 
Alfred  Russell  Wallace  arrived  at  the  theory 
of  natural  selection  independently  of  Darwin, 
so  Engels  and,  later,  Morgan  arrived  at  the 
theory  of  historical  materialism  independently 
of  Marx-— showing  that  both  theories  were  the 
ripe  fruit  of  circumstance. 

•Science  and  Socialism  belong  together.  For, 
just  as,  in  ancient  times,  potentates  slew 
bearers  of  evil  tidings,  so  modern  scientists 
and  Socialists  have  been  execrated,  upon  the 
supposition  that  there  would  be  no  evolution 
if  science  did  not  say  so,  and  there  would  be 
no  class  struggle  if  Socialists  did  not  direct 
our  attention  to  it! 

The  capitalist  class,  having  reached  the 
zenith  of  their  career,  are  opposed  to  further 
progress,  and  leave  science  to  shift  for  herself. 
So  one  group  of  thinkers  are  losing  them- 
selves in  the  maze  of  "science  for  the  sake 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE  89 

of  science."  Their  work  is  sterile  or,  is  apt 
to  be  devoted  to  designing  automatic 
machinery  and  inventing  labor-saving  devices, 
rather  than  health  and  life-saving  appliances. 
Their  "expert"  testimony  depends  upon  how 
much  they  receive  an  hour  and  who  their 
clients  are.  But  another  group  acknowledge 
the  consequences  of  the  modern  theories  and 
subscribe  to  the  program  of  Socialism.  Theirs 
is  known  as  proletarian  science.  It  is  founded 
upon  a  wider,  fuller  and  completer  materialism, 
for  "materialism  is,"  as  Untermann  says,  "the 
handmaid  of  revolution,  and  without  it  no 
proletarian  movement  complies  with  the 
historical  requirements  of  its  evolution."  It  is 
because  the  proletarians,  propertyless  workers, 
"have  nothing  to  lose  but  their  chains,"  that 
they  take  hold  of  the  guidon  of  science  and 
carry  it  forward  to  fresh  victories. 

In  proletarian  science,  evolution  and  revolu- 
tion are  twin  forces.  Every  period  of  slow 
development,  evolution,  is  followed  by  a  com- 
plete change,  a  change  of  the  fundamental 
principle,  or  revolution.  Revolution  paves  the 
way  for  further  evolution.  To  use  a  well- 
known  illustration :  The  embryo  is  part  of  the 
mother,  growing  slowly  through  the  placenta, 
until  the  moment  of  birth,  the  revolution.  The 
child  thenceforward  is  independent.  It  may 
live,  even  though  the  mother  perish  in  the  act 
of  giving  it  birth.  Applying  this  theory  to 
past  and  present  society,  the  Socialist  holds 
that  capitalism  is  evolving  to  the  point  where 


90  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

a  social  revolution  will  bring  forth  a  new  order, 
Socialism.  More  than  that,  development  along 
the  same  line  increases  in  velocity  as  it  reaches 
its  culmination.  Feudalism  did  not  last  nearly 
so  many  centuries  as  primitive  communism  did 
millenniums.  Capitalism  is  not  more  than  five 
centuries  old  at  most;  full-grown,  hardly  a 
century.  Nowadays,  new  machinery  is  no 
sooner  installed  than  it  is  ready  for  scrapping. 
The  industrial  revolution  gave  capitalism  its 
spade.  It  began  digging  its  grave  when  it 
annexed  the  Orient. 

The  theory  of  evolution  by  slow  accumula- 
tion is,  for  that  matter,  hardly  less  radical  than 
that  of  alternate  evolution  and  revolution. 
Nature  fulfills  her  purpose  of  corroding 
mountain  ranges  and  augmenting  the  oceans 
as  well  by  the  sputtering  spring  as  by  the  gush- 
ing geyser.  To  the  lone  traveler  on  the  road 
at  midnight,  when  all  is  wrapped  in  slumber, 
who  stands,  a  mere  speck,  at  the  center  of  that 
infinite  sphere  strewn  with  stars,  nature  is 
just  as  majestic  and  terrible  as  when  she  drives 
a  tidal  wave  that  engulfs  a  city.  The  un- 
pretentious sailor  who  remains  at  his  post  of 
duty,  while  the  ship  is  sinking,  and  for  thirty 
hours  flashes  wireless  signals  of  distress,  so 
saving  hundreds  of  lives,  is  adding  a  little 
to  the  comradeship  of  labor  and  love  that  is  the 
harbinger  of  the  better  time  a-coming. 

Objections  raised  in  the  name  of  science 
against  Socialism,  Ferri  readily  disposes  of. 
Indeed,  most  of  these  overlook  the  fact  that 


SOCIALISM    AND    SCIENCE  91 

Socialism  is  the  only  consistent  explanation  of 
social  evolution.  On  the  other  hand,  Massart 
and  Vandervelde  very  satisfactorily  compare 
parasitism  in  the  social  world  with  that  in  the 
organic.  The  slave  master,  the  feudal  lord,  as 
well  as  minor  celebrities,  such  as  the  pirate 
and  brigand,  belong  to  the  past.  In  our  own 
day  we  note  that  the  higher  a  class  is,  the 
more  useless  is  it.  Financial  capital  domineers 
over  landed  property,  transportation  exacts 
tribute  from  manufacture  and  agriculture, 
while  the  capitalist  class,  as  a  class,  exploit  the 
workers.  The  capitalists  perform  little  or  no 
necessary  functions ;  the  purpose  they  serve  is 
largely  ornamental.  They  are  parasites,  merely 
devourers  of  the  workers'  substance,  as  La- 
fargue  wittily  pictures  in  his  "Sale  of  an 
Appetite." 

The  word  parasitism,  by  the  way,  was  used 
in  sociology  before  it  was  in  biology.  Here 
we  may  remark,  philology,  the  science  of 
language,  is  of  considerable  aid  in  the  study 
of  the  origin  of  institutions.  Lafargue,  among 
Socialists,  has  made  the  best  contribution  in 
this  respect.  To  cite  a  few  instances :  He  tells 
us  that  the  term  capital  dates  back  only  to  the 
18th  century,  and  that  it  has  no  equivalent  in 
the  Greek  and  Latin  tongue,  showing  how  ab- 
surd it  is  to  speak  of  the  capital  of  the  savage. 
Likewise,  a  savage's  notion  of  private  property 
is  substantially  different  from  that  of  a  civilized 
man's.  The  savage  never  reveals  his  name  to 
a  stranger ;  the  civilized  man  has  cards  printed 


92  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

especially  for  purposes  of  introduction.  And, 
quoting  the  Jesuit  Charlevoix :  "The  brotherly 
sentiments  of  the  redskins  are  doubtless  in  part 
ascribable  to  the  fact  that  the  words  'mine' 
and  'thine'  are  all  unknown  as  yet  to  the 
savages." 

What  science  teaches  us,  therefore,  is  that 
everything,  organic  and  social,  has  passed  and 
is  passing  through  a  continuous  evolution  and 
revolution  up  to  higher  forms.  We  are  certain 
that  those  who  have  gone  before  did  not  dis- 
pose of  the  riddles  of  the  universe,  we  are 
reasonably  sure  that  we  know  a  little  more 
than  they  did.  And  we  can  be  positive  that 
we  who  live  today  have  not  uttered  the  final 
word, — they  who  come  after  us  will  add  some- 
thing to  the  jot  of  knowledge  we  possess. 

Nature's  plea  for  democracy  is  exemplified 
in  the  formula:  "Science  is  general  knowledge 
systematized."  Not  what  some  individual 
discovers  and  makes  his  secret,  but  what  is 
commonly  known  and  is  an  influence  in  com- 
mon life,  is  of  scientific  value.  Further,  evolu- 
tion granted,  capitalism  will  pass  away  as  did 
feudalism,  chattel  slavery  and  primitive  com- 
munism. And  if  Socialism  is  not  to  be  the  out- 
come of  the  present  drift  toward  industrial 
collectivism,  what  social  order  will? 

When  the  class-society  of  today  has  given 
way  to  the  fraternity  of  the  world's  workers, 
it  does  not  mean  that  progress  will  cease,  and 
that  the  human  family  will  deteriorate  into  a 
low  level  of  equals.  On  the  contrary,  to  be 


SOCIALISM   AND    SCIENCE  03 

economically  free,  to  rest  assured  that  our 
material  wants  are  disposed  of  for  all  time  to 
come,  and  so  end  the  conflict  for  bread,  means 
that  our  energies  and  capabilities  can  then  be 
directed  toward  intellectual  pursuits,  and  that, 
consequently,  man  will  begin  a  new  course  of 
development :  he  will  describe  a  new  arc  in  the 
spiral  of  intellectual  splendor. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY 

Sociology  treats  of  human  society.  It  studies 
man  at  his  everyday  affairs,  aiming  to  tell  how 
present  social  relations  came  to  be  and  what 
direction  they  are  taking.  It  is  the  youngest 
of  the  sciences,  the  most  complex  and,  con- 
sequently, the  least  exact,  so  that  its  con- 
clusions must  be  accepted  only  very  tentatively. 
But,  while  still  fumbling  about  in  its  swaddling 
clothes,  it  has  come  to  be  the  most  favored  of 
the  family,  and  is  developing  rapidly. 

One  thing,  however,  we  may  say  at  the  out- 
set. Sociology,  to  be  worth  anything,  must 
be  sociology — a  survey  that  takes  into  con- 
sideration the  play  of  social  activities  together. 
The  study  of  some  particularly  curious  or  in- 
teresting phenomenon  in  society,  by  itself,  is 
not  sociology,  any  more  so  than  is  the  study 
of  one's  ringer  nails  anatomy.  Many  so-called 
sociologists  do  not  accept  this  view.  They 
believe  they  can  handle  one  matter,  such  as 
child-labor,  at  a  time,  independently  of  the 
general  social  questions.  Such  sociology  is  of 
the  stamp  that  imagines  that  our  vagrancy 
problem  can  be  solved  by  compelling  tramps 
to  move  on — as  if  there  were  an  edge  of  the 

94 


SOCIALIST   SOCIOLOGY  95 

earth  somewhere,  over  which  they  can  be 
shoved. 

Objection  must  also  be  made  to  the  theory 
that  society  is  merely  a  collection  of  indi- 
viduals, and  that  if  we  know  the  "human  na- 
ture" of  one  and  multiply  it  by  the  whole 
number,  we  can  thereby  tell  what  society  is. 
For  every  one  is  aware  that  we  do  things  in 
our  relations  with  our  fellowmen  that  we 
would  not  dream  of  doing  if  we  lived  alone  on 
some  desert  isle.  Governments,  for  instance, 
are  the  consequence  of  certain  social  needs, 
and  are  very  little  influenced  by  the  fact  that 
here  or  there  some  person  thinks  they  deprive 
him  of  his  personal  liberty.  In  turn,  what  may 
be  to  the  individual's  welfare  or  detriment,  as 
an  individual,  is  not  necessarily  to  the  welfare 
or  detriment  of  society  at  large.  Thus  one 
man's  extravagance  often  stimulates  industrial 
activity;  another  one's  thrift  is  often  a  menace 
to  the  general  welfare.  What  counts,  there- 
fore, is  the  sum  total  of  our  activities  as  mem- 
bers of  society. 

Then  what  is  society?  Spencer  called  it  an 
organism.  It  has  many  of  the  attributes  of  an 
organism.  Yet  it  has  not  developed  out  of 
any  other  organism,  having  been  "artificially" 
created  and  may  be  so  destroyed.  It  is  not  a 
true  organism.  Again,  it  has  been  called  an 
organization.  This  is  less  satisfactory.  The 
hold  society  has  upon  us  is  more  binding,  more 
deeply  seated,  than  that  of  an  arbitrary  asso- 
ciation. It  is  part  of  our  very  makeup.  Even 


96  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

hermits  like  to  be  within  calling  distance  of 
their  fellow-men,  and  hermits  are  quite  rare. 
Society  is  more  of  an  organism  than  an  or- 
ganization. 

Human  society  differs  from  other  organ- 
isms because  of  the  influence  of  the  mind  of 
man.  By  the  exercise  of  this  faculty,  man  has 
scaled  heights  of  achievement  far  beyond  any- 
thing attained  in  the  animal  kingdom,  and  has 
acquired  the  pursuit  of  happiness  as  an  end  in 
itself.  It  is  the  use  of  mechanical  tools  and  the 
desire  for  pleasure,  either  independently  of  or 
in  conjunction  with  the  will  to  live  that,  ac- 
cording to  Lester  F.  Ward,  distinguishes  man 
from  the  other  animals  and  raises  human  so- 
ciety above  animal  gregariousness.  It  may  be 
observed  that  Ward  probably  unconsciously 
borrows  the  thought  of  pursuit  of  happiness 
from  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  docu- 
ment that  the  invention  of  superior  mechanical 
tools  was  not  a  little  responsible  for.  Ward 
takes  up  the  influence  of  mind  especially  in  his 
"Psychic  Factors  of  Civilization."  "The  en- 
vironment transforms  the  animal,  while  man 
transforms  the  environment,"  he  says.  "The 
fundamental  principle  of  biology  is  natural  se- 
lection, that  of  sociology  is  artificial  selection." 
And  of  the  struggle  for  existence  in  society,  he 
declares :  "In  no  proper  sense  is  it  true  that  the 
fittest  survive."  In  his  "Applied  'Sociology" 
he  goes  even  further.  Here  he  says:  "The  in- 
tellectual factor  completely  reverses  the 
biologic  law.  The  whole  effort  of  Jntelligence 


SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY  97 

has  been  to  do  away  with  the  struggle  for 
existence. . .  The  law  of  nature  has  been  neu- 
tralized in  the  physical  world  and  civilization 
is  the  result.  It  is  still  in  force  in  the  social 
and  especially  in  the  economic  world,  but  this 
is  because  the  method  of  mind  has  not  been 
applied  to  these  departments  of  nature."  The 
mind  is  such  an  important  factor  that  modern 
sociology  flows  out  of  psychology,  which,  in 
turn,  rests  upon  biology.  For  this  reason,  too, 
the  social  environment  is  spoken  of  as  "arti- 
ficial" (for  want  of  a  better  word),  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  purely  organic  and  physical 
environment. 

How  did  society  come  to  be?  For  informa- 
tion on  this  point  we  turn  to  Lewis  Morgan, 
whose  great  work,  "Ancient  Society,"  is  a 
storehouse  of  data  describing  what  has  gone 
before.  Just  as  the  human  embryo,  in  its  de- 
velopment, epitomizes  organic  evolution,  so 
Morgan  found,  largely  through  his  investiga- 
tions among  the  Iroquois  nation  of  American 
Indians,  in  studying  their  institutions,  customs 
and  traditions,  that  civilized  man  is  a  resume 
of  social  evolution. 

Morgan  divides  savagery  and  barbarism  into 
three  periods  each.  Supposing  man,  as  such, 
to  have  existed  now  a  hundred  thousand  years 
upon  earth,  Morgan  thinks  it  fair  to  say  that 
sixty  thousand  years  were  spent  in  savagery, 
twenty  thousand  in  older  barbarism,  fifteen 
thousand  in  its  two  later  periods,  leaving 
about  five  thousand  for  civilization.  If  any- 


98  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

thing,  Morgan  underestimates  the  time  society 
has  existed.  In  making  these  divisions,  Mor- 
gan says:  "It  is  probable  that  the  successive 
arts  of  subsistence  which  arose  at  long  inter- 
vals will  ultimately,  from  the  great  influence 
they  must  have  exercised  upon  the  condition 
of  mankind,  afford  the  most  satisfactory  bases 
for  these  divisions." 

The  earliest  form  of  social  arrangement 
known  is  that  of  communism,  when  the  land 
and  almost  everything  else  was  held  in  com- 
mon. And  it  is  speaking  of  this  time  that 
Morgan  says:  "The  principal  institutions  of 
mankind  originated  in  savagery,  were  de- 
veloped in  barbarism,  and  are  maturing  in 
civilization."  The  author  mentions  among  these 
institutions,  "the  rudiments  of  language,  of 
government,  of  the  family,  of  religion,  of  house 
architecture  and  of  property,  together  with  the 
principal  germs  of  the  arts  of  life." 

The  first  division  of  labor  was  between  man 
and  woman.  While  man  was  the  hunter  and 
warrior,  woman  both  delved  and  spun,  despite 
the  old  saying.  The  many  accomplishments  of 
prehistoric  woman,  O.  T.  Mason  has  recounted 
for  us  in  his  "Woman's  Share  in  Primitive 
Culture."  Particularly  should  be  noted  the 
making  of  pottery,  which  introduced  village 
life  and  marked  the  transition  from  savagery 
to  barbarism;  also  the  domestication  of 
animals,  the  last  step  but  one  before  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  first  organization  of  society  was  upon 


SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY  95 

the  basis  of  sex.  Husband  and  wife  belonged 
to  different  gentes.  Morgan  defines  a  gens  as 
a  group,  "descended  from  the  same  common 
ancestor,  distinguished  by  a  gentile  name,  and 
bound  together  by  affinities  of  blood."  From 
the  same  root  we  derive  the  words  generate 
and  generation.  Several  gentes  made  a  tribe 
through  the  medium  of  phratries,  and  several 
tribes  made  a  confederacy  and  nation,  each 
fulfilling  certain  purposes  and  exercising  cer- 
tain administrative  rights,  although  of  a' 
different  nature  from  those  of  political  govern- 
ment. 

Political  government,  founded  upon  property 
and  division  of  territory,  with  its  economic 
classes,  tax  gatherers  and  police  powers,  was 
an  innovation  that  disrupted  tribal  society.  It 
is  not  yet  two  and  a  half  thousand  years  old, 
and,  so  Morgan  says,  "although  apparently  a 
simple  idea,  it  required  centuries  of  time  and  a 
complete  revolution  of  pre-existing  conceptions 
of  government  to  accomplish  the  result."  Mor* 
gan  declares  private  property  to  be  the  prin- 
cipal cause  of  the  change.  Thus  he  says,  in 
regard  to  Athens:  "The  useful  arts  had  at- 
tained a  very  considerable  development;  com- 
merce on  the  sea  had  become  a  national  in- 
terest ;  agriculture  and  manufactures  were  well 
advanced;  and  written  composition  in  verse 
had  commenced.  They  were  in  fact  a  civilized 
people,  and  had  been  for  two  centuries."  Says 
Engels,  in  his  "Origin  of  the  Family,"  which 
follows  "Ancient  Society:"  "Liberty,  equality 


100  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

and  fraternity,  though  never  formulated,  were 
cardinal  principles  of  the  gens."  For  a  long 
while  the  wife  perforce  was  the  head  of  the 
family.  "In  all  societies  in  which  the  ma- 
triarchal form  of  the  family  has  maintained 
itself,"  Lafargue  tells  us,  "we  find  landed 

property  held  by  the  woman So  long  as 

property  was  a  cause  of  subjection,  it  was 
abandoned  to  the  woman;  but  no  sooner  had 
it  become  a  means  of  emancipation  and  su- 
premacy in  the  family  and  society  than  man 
tore  it  from  her." 

The  family  has  undergone  several  changes. 
Morgan  acquaints  us  with  five  forms,  each 
representing  a  different  period:  The  consan- 
guine, the  intermarriage  of  brothers  and  sisters 
in  a  group,  giving  the  Malayan  system  of  re- 
lationship ;  the  punaluan,  the  inter-marriage  of 
several  brothers  to  each  other's  wives  in  a 
group,  and  several  sisters  to  each  other's  hus- 
bands in  a  group,  creating  the  Turanian  sys- 
tem of  relationships;  the  syndyasmian  family, 
the  pairing  of  one  male  with  one  female,  with 
no  exclusive  habitation  and  with  separation  at 
the  option  of  either;  the  patriachal  family, 
the  marriage  of  one  man  to  several  wives ;  the 
monogamian  family,  consisting  of  one  man  and 
one  woman,  creating  the  monogamian  system 
of  relationships.  Evidence  of  the  first  two 
forms  still  remains,  although  they  belong  to 
savagery  and  precede  the  institution  of  the 
gens.  The  third  form  is  still  extant  among 
barbarians ;  Engels  tells  us  it  existed  among 


SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY  101 

the  Irish  and  Welsh  as  recently  as  the 
eleventh  century.  The  patriarchal  form  is 
that  of  pastoral  tribes,  notably  the  Hebrews 
of  biblical  times.  It  exists  among  the  Mormons 
today.  The  last  form  is  peculiar  to  private 
property  and  civilization.  Here  again,  as 
Morgan  says :  "Property  becomes  sufficiently 
powerful  in  its  influence  to  touch  the  organic 
structure  of  society." 

The  immorality  of  our  day  is,  to  a  great 
extent,  a  reversion  to  what  was  formerly 
normal.  Immorality  is  atavistic.  Bigamy,  the 
double  code  of  sexual  morals  and  one-sided 
secret  arrangements  especially  prevalent  among 
the  upper  class,  are  of  this  character.  As  a 
general  rule,  frequency  of  relapse  to  a  former 
sexual  relation  depends  upon  how  nearly  it  ap- 
proaches the  present  one.  By  what  we  can 
gather  from  evolution,  the  family  of  the  future 
is  likely  to  be  one  of  pure  monogamy. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  freedom  of 
any  society  may  be  measured  by  the  freedom 
of  its  women.  "Woman  was  the  first  human 
being  to  come  into  bondage;  she  was  a  slave 
before  the  male  slave  existed,"  says  Bebel.  Let 
us  remember  that  as  late  as  the  sixteenth 
century — after  Sappho  had  twanged  her  lyre 
and  when  Shakespeare  was  about  to  im- 
mortalize Desdemona,  Lady  Macbeth,  Ophelia 
and  Portia — serious  men  were  still  in  doubt  as 
to  whether  or  not  woman  has  a  soul,  whereas 
Havelock  Ellis  tells  us:  "It  can  scarcely  be 
said  that  the  study  of  the  brain  from  the 


102  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

present  point  of  view  leads  to  the  revelation  of 
any  important  sexual  distinctions."  More  than 
a  century  woman  has  been  struggling  for  the 
right  of  suffrage,  a  right  she  enjoyed  during 
barbarism.  Step  by  step  she  has  fought  her 
way  up,  bearing  alone  the  sacred  burden  of 
motherhood  and  yet  deemed  unworthy  to  share 
the  liberties  of  her  offspring.  At  the  present 
time  over  five  million  women  in  America,  a 
large  proportion  of  whom  are  married,  crowd 
the  labor  market.  Like  man  they  are  com- 
pelled to  pervert  mind  and  muscle  for  bread, 
while  about  half  a  million  are  thrust  in 
the  mire  even  more  deeply  than  man.  The 
woman  problem  is  most  decidedly  part  of  the 
social  problem,  although  women  are  hindered 
in  assisting  at  its  solution. 

Differences  there  are  between  the  sexes, 
differences  that  reach  down  into  our  very 
being.  Havelock  Ellis,  after  considering  the 
matter,  sums  it  up  in  this  fashion:  "All  the 
evidence  brought  together  points,  with  varying 
degrees  of  certainty,  to  the  same  conclusion — 
the  greater  physical  fraility  of  men,  the  greater 
tenacity  of  life  in  women."  "From  an  organic 
standpoint,  therefore,  women  represent  the 
more  stable  and  conservative  element  in  evolu- 
tion." "In  each  sex  there  are  undeveloped 
organs  and  functions  which  in  the  other  sex 
are  developed."  Ward  has  this  to  say:  "The 
dominant  characteristic  of  the  male  faculty  is 
courage,  that  of  the  female,  prudence."  And, 
"In  the  realm  of  the  intellect,  where  he  would 


SOCIALIST   SOCIOLOGY  103 

fain  reign  supreme,  she  has  proved  herself 
fully  his  equal  and  is  entitled  to  her  share  of 
whatever  credit  attaches  to  human  progress 
thereby  achieved."  Edward  Carpenter,  in 
"Love's  Coming  of  Age,"  pays  this  tribute: 
"Since  she  keeps  to  the  great  lines  of  evolution 
and  is  less  biased  and  influenced  by  the  mo- 
mentary currents  of  the  day;  since  her  life  is 
bound  up  with  the  life  of  the  child ;  since  in  a 
way  she  is  nearer  the  child  herself,  and  nearer 
to  the  savage ;  it  is  to  her  that  Man,  after  his 
excursions  and  wanderings,  mental  and  phy- 
sical, continually  tends  to  return  as  to  his 
primitive  home  and  resting  place,  to  restore  his 
balance,  to  find  his  centre  of  life  and  to  draw 
stores  of  energy  and  inspiration  for  fresh  con- 
quests of  the  outer  world."  It  is  the  male  who 
searches  for  new  worlds  to  win,  while  the 
female  conserves  what  has  been  gained. 
Organic  inequalities  tend  to  make  the  sexes 
complement  each  other  and  so  works  for  the 
betterment  of  man  and  woman.  Each  is 
realized  only  through  a  happy  union  with  the 
other.  There  is  no  room  for  social  distinctions. 

As  deplorable  as  the  condition  of  woman  is 
today,  that  of  the  child  is  still  worse.  Two 
millions  of  youngsters  are  turning  their 
frail  bodies  into  profit  in  America;  thousands 
of  them  die  before  arriving  at  maturity.  Says 
Charlotte  Perkins  Gilman,  in  her  work,  "Con- 
cerning Children :"  "As  members  of  society,  we 
find  they  have  received  almost  no  attention. 
They  are  treated  as  members  of  the  family  by 


104  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

the  family,  but  not  even  recognized  as  be- 
longing to  society. . . .  Except  for  these  rare 
cases  of  special  playgrounds,  except  for  the 
quite  generous  array  of  school  houses  and  a 
few  orphan  asylums  and  kindred  institutions, 
there  are  no  indications  in  city  or  country  that 
there  are  such  people  as  children."  And  here 
it  may  be  inserted  that,  whatever  element  of 
truth  there  may  be  in  the  witticism  that 
Bernard  Shaw  writes  plays  for  the  op- 
portunity it  affords  him  of  penning  prefaces, 
true  enough  is  it  that  many  such  a  sociological 
contribution  as  Spencer's  "Education"  is  badly 
in  need  of  a  long  preliminary  chapter,  setting 
forth  the  fact  that  for  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  the  treatise  is  largely  inapplicable.  Mrs. 
Oilman,  for  her  part,  knows  that  the  welfare  of 
the  little  ones  is  bound  up  in  the  general  con- 
cern. "Our  children  suffer  individually  from 
bad  social  conditions,"  she  says,  "but  cannot 
be  saved  individually." 

Man's  relations  in  society  are  the  outcome  of 
what  has  gone  before,  the  fruit  of  historical 
conditions.  Only  by  bearing  this  in  mind  can 
we  understand  existing  institutions,  learn  how 
codes  of  morality  came  to  be  formulated  and 
determine,  what  course  of  action  makes  for  the 
common  good.  This  method  is  that  of  historical 
materialism,  the  Socialist  interpretation  of 
history.  That  the  method  is  a  rational  one  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  establishment  of 
international  commercial  connections  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  holding  of  international  con- 


SOCIALIST   SOCIOLOGY  105 

ferences  on  matters  of  a  diplomatic,  philosoph- 
ical, scientific  and  sociological  nature,  although 
some  of  these  gatherings  are  international  in 
little  else  but  name.  It  is  shown  in  the  fact 
that  the  so-called  individualistic  school  of 
sociology,  represented  by  Spencer,  which  was 
a  reflex  of  capitalism  in  its  younger  days,  is 
being  replaced  by  the  modern  social  school,  in- 
dicating that  our  social  fabric  has  become  more 
complex. 

It  is  in  the  domain  of  criminal  sociology,  of 
the  special  fields,  that  possibly  the  most  satis- 
factory work  has  been  done  thus  far.  For  this 
we  are  indebted  particularly  to  Enrico  Ferri, 
of  the  positive  school  of  criminology  of 
Lombroso. 

Distinguishing  three  causes  of  crime — 
heredity,  physical  and  social  environments, — 
Ferri  divides  criminals  into  five  groups: 
criminal  madmen,  born  criminals,  criminals  by 
contracted  habits,  occasional  criminals  and 
criminals  of  passion,  and  declares  that  mad 
criminals  and  criminals  of  passion  are  5  to  10 
per  cent  of  the  total ;  born  and  habitual  crim- 
inals 40  to  50  per  cent,  and  occasional  crim- 
inals, 40  to  50  per  cent.  While  laying  due  stress 
upon  this,  Ferri  goes  on  to  say:  "It  is  to 
the  social  factors  that  we  must  chiefly  attribute 
the  periodic  variations  of  criminality."  Again, 
"The  truth  is  that  the  balance  of  crime  is 
determined  by  the  physical  and  social  environ- 
ment. But  by  changing  the  condition  of  the 
social  environment,  which  is  most  easily 


106  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

modified,  the  legislator  may  alter  the  influence 
of  the  telluric  environment  and  the  organic 
and  psychic  conditions  of  the  population,  con- 
trol the  greater  portion  of  crimes  and  reduce 
them  considerably."  His  studies  lead  him  to 
formulate  a  "law  of  criminal  saturation,"  which 
he  explains  as  follows :  "Just  as  in  a  given 
volume  of  water,  at  a  given  temperature,  we 
find  a  solution  of  a  fixed  quantity  of  any  chem- 
ical substance,  not  an  atom  more  or  less,  so  in 
a  given  social  environment,  in  certain  defined 
physical  conditions  of  the  individual,  we  find 
the  commission  of  a  fixed  number  of  crimes." 
It  is  in  obeyance  to  this  law  that  at  one  time 
men  try  to  break  out  of  jail,  while  at  another 
time  they  try  to  break  into  it. 

The  positive  school,  therefore,  considers  the 
criminal  a  victim  rather  than  a  free  will  agent. 
It  proceeds  upon  the  theory  that,  as  the  say- 
ing goes,  "an  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a 
pound  of  cure,"  and,  in  its  program,  offers 
"penal  substitutes,"  whereby  criminal  pro- 
clivities may  be  diverted  into  non-criminal  and 
useful  channels.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that 
the  carrying  out  of  this  program  is  largely 
dependent  upon  the  progress  of  the  workers 
in  the  birth  of  a  social  consciousness.  In  the 
minor  courts  today,  to  the  greatest  degree,  and 
to  some  extent  in  the  superior  courts,  judges 
are  chosen,  not  so  much  for  being  learned  in 
the  law  as  for  their  wealth,  social  station  or 
service  to  the  political  machine.  It  goes  with- 
out saying  that  this  is  equally  true  of  legis- 


SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY  107 

lators  and  prison  officials.  Further,  the  "law 
of  criminal  saturation"  is  quite  acceptable  to 
one  who  regards  society  from  the  standpoint 
of  historical  materialism.  The  theory  of 
saturation  may  be  applied  to  other  social  ills; 
it  is  but  another  way  of  saying  the  human  race 
tolerates  one  social  order  until  it  is  ready  for 
another. 

In  some  respects  the  most  courageous  work 
done  in  sociology  is  that  of  the  school  of 
Ratzenhofer,  represented  by  Professor  Albion 
W.  Small.  Says  the  latter,  in  his  work  on 
"General  Sociology:"  "In  the  beginning  were 
interests.  . . .  The  primary  interests  of  every 
man,  as  of  every  animal,  is  in  sheer  keeping 
alive. . . .  The  conspicuous  element  in  the 
history  of  the  race,  so  far  as  it  has  been  re- 
corded, is  universal  conflict  of  interests."  The 
last  sentiment  is  readily  identified  as  the  open- 
ing thought  of  the  "Communist  Manifesto," 
Engel's  footnote  included.  Small  lays  stress 
upon  class  interests,  dividing  society  into 
"three  chief  groups ;  the  privileged ;  the  middle 
class;  those  without  property,  rights,  or  in- 
fluence." 

This  is  a  very  good  working  foundation. 
Furthermore,  if  sociology  is,  as  its  exponents 
affirm,  the  science  of  sciences,  a  bouquet  of  the 
others,  it  must  take  a  stand  in  this  great  con- 
flict of  contending  interests.  Sociology  that 
exists  for  its  own  sake  is  sterile.  There  is  no 
sociology  for  the  sake  of  sociology,  as  Ferri 
well  puts  it.  It  must  exist  for  the  sake  of  so- 


108  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

ciety.  Just  as  there  is  a  positive  school  of 
criminal  sociology,  so  there  must  be  a  positive 
program  for  general  sociology.  Small  per- 
ceives this.  So  he  declares:  "From  the  human 
standpoint  no  science  is  an  end  in  itself.  The 
proximate  end  of  all  science  is  organization 
into  action."  And  again,  "The  sociologists 
believe  that  the  most  worthy  work  of  men  is 
effort  to  improve  human  conditions."  Follow- 
ing this  theme,  Small  talks  in  the  language  of 
the  Socialist:  "Civilization  involves  approach 
to  a  situation  in  which  each  person  shall  be  a 
person,  not  a  commodity  for  other  persons ; 
in  which  also  each  person  shall  be  equally  free 
with  every  other  person  to  develop  the  type 
of  personality  latent  in  his  natural  endowment, 
not  the  sort  of  personality  to  which  he  would 
be  limited  by  arbitrary  division  of  opportunity." 

Small  accepts  Socialist  economics:  "In  the 
first  place,  capital  itself  produces  nothing.  It 
earns  nothing.  This  is  contrary  to  general 
economic  presumption."  And  as  a  sequel:  "If 
we  are  justified  in  drawing  any  general  con- 
clusions whatever  from  human  experience  thus 
far,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  social  process 
tends  to  put  an  increasing  proportion  of  in- 
dividuals in  possession  of  all  the  goods  which 
have  been  discovered  by  the  experience  of  hu- 
manity as  a  whole,  and  that  all  social  programs 
should  be  thought  out  with  a  view  to  pro- 
motion of  this  tendency." 

How  near  Small  comes  to  the  Socialist  po- 
sition may  be  gathered  from  this  thought, 


SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY  109 

which  is  repeated  throughout  his  work:  "The 
great  value  of  sociology  to  most  people  will  be 
an  indirect  consequence  of  its  furnishing  a  point 
of  view,  a  perspective,  an  atmosphere,  which 
will  help  to  place  all  the  problems  of  life  with 
which  each  has  to  deal ;  or,  to  use  a  different 
figure,  it  will  serve  as  a  pass-key  to  all  the 
theoretical  difficulties  about  society  that  each 
of  us  may  encounter."  What  is  the  nature  of 
thas  pass  key?  "Indeed,  we  have  come  to 
realize  that  politics  at  bottom  is  very  largely 
a  maneuvering  to  control  the  means  of  con- 
trolling wealth."  Here  Small  uses  historical 
materialism  as  his  pass-key. 

But,  likely  because  Small  does  not  subscribe 
in  full  to  the  Socialist  philosophy,  his  work  has 
no  positive  program.  And  such  a  program  it 
must  have,  to  be  worth  anything.  For,  in  his 
own  words,  "If  our  sociology  turns  out  to  be 
real  knowledge,  not  the  temporary  aberration 
of  a  few  pedants,  it  must  have  a  message  that 
can  be  translated  from  technical  academic 
phraseology  into  the  thought  and  words  of 
common  life."  Small  could  not  strike  off  better 
the  charge  of  the  Socialist ;  he  could  not  better 
acknowledge  the  challenge  of  the  workers  that 
the  fulfilling  of  this  purpose  is  the  express 
mission  of  the  Socialist  movement. 

It  is  just  the  theory  of  historical  materialism 
that  is  the  vitalizing  current  in  sociology.  If 
"history  is  sociology  in  the  yoke,"  as  Small 
contends,  and  if  sociology  is  largely  a  matter 
of  interpretation,  as  he  believes,  he  must  ac- 


HO  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

cept  historical  materialism  or  offer  a  sub- 
stitute. "History  is  just  becoming  rational, 
just  beginning  to  ascertain  its  function  and  to 
comprehend  its  rightful  domain.  History— 
not  that  fragment  we  now  call  history,  but  the 
record  and  contemplation  of  the  evolution  of 
things — the  history  of  social  conditions  and 
tendencies,  of  theories  and  experiments,  of 
laws  and  institutions,  in  times  gone  by — that 
wider  history  which  narrates  events  antedating 
human  memory  and  consciousness — the  history 
of  the  long  processes  in  the  evolution  of  life 
on  the  planet — history  which  tells  of  the 
mighty,  unseen  cataclysms  which  took  place 
in  the  fiery  eons  of  the  earth's  babyhood — the 
biography  of  planets  and  systems  and  of  the 
peoples  and  institutions  that  have  evolved 
upon  them — this  is  history  in  its  future, 
rational  and  universal  sense."  Such  is  the 
utterance  of  J.  Howard  Moore,  in  his  "Better 
World  Philosophy."  Is  it  a  mere  accident  that 
this  new  outlook  toward  history  comes  after 
Marx  formulated  the  theory  of  historical 
materialism,  showing  that  the  rise  of  the  labor 
movement  would  necessitate  just  such  an 
attitude? 

And  is  it  an  accident  that  the  end  of 
sociology  is  said  to  be  the  socialization  of 
achievement,  just  at  the  time  when  the  work- 
ers declare  their  program  to  be  the  socialization 
of  industry?  That  it  is  no  accident,  we  may 
gather  from  the  fact  that  Ward  accepts  the 
Socialist  position  on  this  matter,  as  well  as 


SOCIALIST   SOCIOLOGY  HI 

embracing  historical  materialism,  even  though 
he  calls  himself  a  "sociocrat"  instead  of  So- 
cialist. 

Let  us  put  together  what  Ward  tells  us. 
"National  freedom  and  political  freedom  have 
been  achieved.  Social  freedom  remains  to  be 
achieved."  "The  movement  that  is  now 
agitating  society  is  different  from  any  of  the 
previous  movements,  but  it  differs  from  them 
only  as  they  differ  from  one  another.  It  is 
nothing  less  than  the  coming  to  consciousness 
of  the  proletariat."  "For  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  political  parties  there  has  been 
formed  a  distinctively  industrial  party,  which 
possesses  all  the  elements  of  permanence  and 
may  soon  be  a  controlling  factor  in  American 
politics.  Though  this  may  not  as  yet  presage 
a  great  social  revolution,  still  it  is  precisely 
the  way  in  which  a  reform  in  the  direction 
indicated  should  be  expected  to  originate." 
"There  is  only  one  live  problem,  the  maximum 
equalization  of  intelligence."  "The  union,  as- 
sociation and  complete  fusion  of  all  races  into 
one  great  homogeneous  race — the  race  of  man 
— is  the  final  step  in  social  evolution."  "Man- 
kind wants  no  eleemosynary  schemes,  no 
private  nor  public  benefactions,  no  fatherly 
oversight  of  the  privileged  classes,  nor  any 
other  form  of  patronizing  hyprocrisy.  They 
only  want  power — the  power  which  is  their 
right  and  which  lies  within  their  grasp.  They 
have  only  to  reach  out  and  take  it.  The 
victims  of  privative  ethics  are  in  the  immense 


112  SOCIALISM    FOR    STUDENTS 

majority.  They  constitute  society.  They  are 
the  heirs  of  all  the  ages.  They  have  only  to 
rouse  and  enter  upon  their  patrimony  that  the 
genius  of  all  lands  and  of  all  time  has 
generously  bequeathed  to  them." 

And  Morgan,  too,  accepts  the  Socialist  po- 
sition in  saying:  "When  the  intelligence 
of  mankind  rises  to  the  height  of  the  great 
question  of  the  abstract  rights  of  property, — 
including  the  relations  of  property  to  the  state, 
as  well  as  the  rights  of  persons  to  property, — 
a  modification  of  the  present  order  of  things 
may  be  expected.  The  nature  of  the  coming 
changes  it  may  be  impossible  to  conceive ;  but 
it  seems  probable  that  democracy,  once  uni- 
versal in  a  rudimentary  form  and  repressed  in 
many  civilized  states,  is  destined  to  become 
again  universal  and  supreme." 

The  sociology  that  responds  to  every  test, 
therefore,  is  Socialist  sociology.  It  furnishes 
the  pass-key  to  understand  the  society  of  the 
past  and  to  explain  its  present  trend.  It 
rests  upon  the  theory  that  material  interests 
are  of  fundamental  importance  and  that  they 
must  be  satisfactorily  adjusted  before  there 
can  be  peace  among  mankind.  It  realises  that 
so  long  as  one  man  anywhere  is  a  thrall,  the 
human  race  is  enslaved.  It  points  to  the  war 
of  the  classes  and  declares  that  the  future  gf 
the  working  class  is  the  future  of  society.  It 
brings  sociology  down  to  earth  and  the  com- 
mon man.  Its  program  is  the  life-giving  force 
to  sociology:  to  socialize  achievement  by  con- 


SOCIALIST    SOCIOLOGY  H3 

verting  the  means  of  production  into  collective 
property,  thereby  making  the  fullest  and  freest 
development  of  the  individual  accord  with  the 
welfare  and  progress  of  society,  and  replacing 
the  existing  chaos  and  conflict  by  harmony  and 
happiness. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY 

From  the  earliest  times  what  man  lacked  in 
knowledge  he  made  up  in  imagination.  And 
the  less  he  was  informed  as  regards  what 
occurred  about  him,  the  more  extravagant 
were  the  speculations  he  indulged  in.  Con- 
'sequently  his  intellectual  growth  consists,  in 
•some  measure  at  least,  in  a  process  of  disillu- 
sionment. 

By  degrees  man  has  extended  the  realm  of 
the  known  and  limited  that  of  the  unknown. 
At  first  the  universe  appeared  as  chaos.  Then 
it  was  seen  that  everything  exists  in  motion 
through  time  and  space.  Then  the  distinction 
became  clear  between  the  organic  and  the  in- 
organic, between  the  animate  and  the  inanimate, 
between  the  lower  animals  and  man.  Then 
came  the  classification  of  phenomena:  the 
study  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  of  the  activity  of 
matter,  of  its  composition,  of  organic  life,  of 
consciousness,  and  of  society.  Having  classified 
the  data  gathered,  man  formulates  theories, 
learns  the  purpose  of  everything  and  offers  his 
explanation  of  what  we  are,  how  we  came  to 
be  and  whither  we  are  going. 

Philosophizing  about  things  is  the  highest 
function  of  the  mind.  For  in  a  proper  sense 
philosophy  is  something  more  than  science ;  it 

114 


SOCIALIST  PHILOSOPHY  U5 

is  like  standing  upon  one's  tiptoes  above  what 
we  know  to  take  a  peep  into  what  is  just 
beyond  and  what  some  day  we  may  under- 
stand. It  should  be  stated  at  once,  however, 
that  there  is  more  poetry  than  truth  in  the 
verse :  "We  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made 
of."  Sentiments  of  that  kind  belong-  to  the 
earlier  ages,  when  men  were  engaged  in 
speculating  as  to  the  number  of  spirits  that  can 
dance  on  the  point  of  a  needle.  Philosophy 
deals  with  the  realities  of  life,  no  less  so  than 
does  science.  We  spin  our  philosophies  only 
as  we  human  beings  must,  because  of  what  we 
and  the  universe  are.  Science  commences 
where  metaphysics  ends.  Science  does  not 
lose  itself  in  metaphysics.  Metaphysics  finds 
itself  in  science. 

Ideas  originate  in  our  brains,  not  outside  of 
us.  What  we  call  the  mind  of  man,  like  every- 
thing else,  began  in  simpler  forms.  Fitch  and 
Jacques  Loeb  even  trace  it  back  to  inanimate 
nature.  The  impulse  out  of  which  intellect 
has  sprung  is  intuition,  which  is  developed 
further  in  many  animals  than  in  man.  Thus 
animals  scent  danger  more  quickly  than  man 
and  are  superior  weather  prophets.  Because 
intuition  appears  to  be  more  deeply  seated  in 
the  female  of  the  race,  enabling  her  to 
peremptorily  pass  judgments  that  the  male 
arrives  at  only  after  laborious  thought,  intuition 
is  often  spoken  of  as  a  feminine  attribute. 

Man  thinks  what  he  cannot  help  thinking. 
Professor  William  James,  in  his  work  on 
"Psychology,"  states  his  fundamental  propo- 


116  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

sition  in  this  wise:  "The  first  and  foremost 
concrete  fact  which  everyone  will  affirm  to  be- 
long to  his  inner  experience  is  the  fact  that 
consciousness  of  some  sort  goes  on.  'States  of 
mind'  succeed  each  other  in  him.  If  we  could 
say  in  English  'it  thinks,'  as  we  say  'it  rains'  or 
'it  blows/  we  should  be  stating  the  fact  most 
simply  and  with  the  minimum  of  assumption. 
As  we  cannot  we  must  simply  say  that  thought 
goes  on."  This  observation  every  one  verifies 
when  he  speaks  of  a  thought  coming  to  him 
"as  quick  as  a  flash." 

Just  as  we  cannot  conceive  of  any  other  color 
except  those  we  know  or  a  combination  of 
them,  so  we  entertain  only  such  ideas  as  are 
the  result  of  the  experience  of  what  is  in  us. 
"Imagination  cannot  transcend  experience," 
Lester  F.  Ward  puts  it.  When  philosophy 
tried  to  do  so,  he  says  "it  floated  in  the  air  and 
fought  the  battle  of  the  shades."  "The  history 
of  successive  meanings  of  words  solves  the 
first  difficulty;  it  shows  the  concrete  meaning 
always  preceeding  the  abstract  meaning,"  re- 
marks Lafargue.  Among  many  instances  of 
like  nature,  he  calls  our  attention  to  the 
legends  surrounding  certain  numbers,  showing 
what  a  hard  time  the  savage  had  in  training 
himself  to  count  beyond  two.  And  Professor 
Seligman  says:  "Everywhere  the  physical, 
material  substratum  was  recognized  long  be- 
fore the  ethical  connotation  was  reached." 

Ideas  are  of  value  only  as  they  respond  to 
material,  historical  fact.  Detached  from  the 
conditions  to  which  they  rightfully  belong,  their 


SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY  U7 

significance  is  warped.  The  problems  con- 
fronting society  are  not  hypothetical.  Thus 
secession  should  hardly  have  shocked  the 
North,  since  abolitionists  and  New  Englanders 
had  advocated  such  a  policy  long  before  the 
South  carried  it  into  execution. 

Dualism — separation  of  ideas  from  things — 
appears  in  many  shapes.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  features  of  some  outworn  philosophies. 
Thus  Kautsky  says  of  Kant:  "Through  him 
did  philosophy  first  become  the  science  of 
science,  whose  duty  it  is  not  to  teach  a  distinct 
philosophy,  but  how  to  philosophize."  Yet 
Kant  believed  there  to  be  in  everything  "the 
thing  in  itself,"  as  apart  from  the  combination 
of  its  qualities.  Instead  of  examining  the  ; 
merits  and  demerits  of  men  and  institutions, 
this  process  of  reasoning  would  make  us  hold 
to  "the  divine  right  of  kings,"  "the  sacredness 
of  contract"  and  the  infallibility  of  courts. 

The  consequence  of  dualism  is,  as  in  Spen- 
cer's case,  the  contemplation  of  an  unknowable, 
separate  and  distinct  from  the  knowable,  for- 
ever closed  to  the  human  mind.  Regarding 
which  it  might  well  be  observed :  If  there  is, 
we  do  not  know  of  it.  Much  is  indeed  un- 
known. But  some  of  what  was  formerly  un- 
known is  no  longer  so.  While  we  do  not  rush 
to  the  other  extreme — ultimately  everything 
will  be  known — we  can  say  that  considerable 
of  it  will  some  day  be  understood. 

Again,  in  Hegel's  Ncase,  there  is  dualism 
based  upon  the  idea  as  the  primary.  Engels 
describes  the  Hegelian  philosophy  in  these 


118  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

words :  "In  this  system — and  herein  is  its  great 
merit — for  the  first  time  the  whole  world, 
natural,  historical,  intellectual,  is  represented 
as  a  process,  i.  e.,  as  in  constant  motion, 
change,  transformation,  development,  and  the 
attempt  is  made  to  trace  out  the  internal  con- 
nection that  makes  a  continuous  whole  of  all 
this  movement  and  development. . . .  From  this 
point  of  view  the  history  of  mankind  no  longer 
appeared  as  a  wild  whirl  of  senseless  deeds  of 
violence  all  equally  condemnable  at  the  judg- 
ment seat  of  mature  philosophic  reason,  and 
which  are  best  forgotten  as  quickly  as  possible ; 
but  as  the  process  of  evolution  of  man  him- 
self." Hegel  sought  in  the  evolution  of  ideas 
for  a  philosophy  of  history,  rather  than  in  the 
development  of  institutions  out  of  and  into 
social  orders.  As  a  consequence  Hegel  lost 
himself  in  the  pursuit  of  the  absolute.  His 
method  is  satisfactory;  the  content  of  that 
method,  the  system,  is  insufficient. 

It  is  hardly  accidental  that  Spencer  and 
Hegel  are  found  defending  the  existing  order, 
disciples  of  so-called  individualism.  For  a 
philosophy  seeking  the  absolute  is  likely  to  be 
nothing  more  than  a  mirage  of  class  dominion. 
The  absolute  in  philosophy  accompanies  the 
absolute  in  economics,  politics  and  social 
relations,  accompanies  the  concentration  of 
property,  power  and  position  into  the  hands 
of  the  monopolist. 

Breaking  away  from  the  Hegelian  school, 
and  marking  another  step  forward,  stands 
Feuerbach.  Feuerbach  declared  his  position 


SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY  H9 

to  be:  "Backwards  I  am  in  accord  with  the 
materialists,  but  not  forwards."  This  attitude, 
Engels,  in  his  work  on  "Feuerbach,"  has  very 
well  hit  off.  "The  under  half  of  him  was 
materialist,  the  upper  half  idealist."  Feuer- 
bach is  intermediary,  the  connecting  link.  The 
next  school  is  that  of  Marx,  the  materialistic 
conception  of  history.  Marx's  method  differs 
little  from  the  Hegelian.  But  in  the  gathering 
of  data,  material  conditions  and  social  relations 
play  a  more  important  part  than  speculations. 
The  Hegelian  system  is  turned  right  side  up. 

Caution  must  be  exercised  in  employing  the 
Marxian  method.  Ideas  are  not  ignored.  They 
are  included.  They  are  accepted  as  part  of  the 
historical  data.  But  they  do  not  exist  alone. 
And  the  actual  conditons  that  brought  them 
into  being  are  generally  first  considered.  Marx 
emphasizes  this  point  when  he  says  in 
criticism  of  Feuerbach:  "The  materialistic 
doctrine  that  men  are  the  products  of  con- 
ditions and  education,  different  men  therefore 
the  products  of  other  conditions  and  changed 
education,  forgets  that  circumstances  may  be 
altered  by  men  and  that  the  educator  has  him- 
self to  be  educated.  It  necessarily  happens, 
therefore,  that  society  is  divided  into  two 
parts,  of  which  one  is  elevated  above  society. 
(Robert  Owen,  for  example)." 

In  Socialist  philosophy  there  is  no  pursuit 
of  the  absolute,  other  than  lies  in  recognizing 
the  universe  as  the  only  absolute.  Says 
Dietzgen,  in  his  "Philosophical  Essays:"  "The 
absolute  and  the  relative  are  not  separated 


180  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

transcendentally,  they  are  connected  with  each 
other  so  that  the  unlimited  is  made  up  of  an 
infinite  number  of  finite  limitations  and  each 
limited  phenomenon  possesses  the  nature  of 
the  infinite."  Entertaining  any  other  absolute 
is  but  a  way  of  acknowledging  the  capitalist 
order  to  be  absolute  and  final.  The  Socialist, 
for  his  part,  regards  the  ending  of  the  career 
of  our  ruling  class  as  the  beginning  of  the 
career  of  the  working  class,  as  making  way 
for  grander  intellectual  achievement. 

With  the  'Socialist,  therefore,  everything  is 
relative.  Everything  exists  by  contrast.  All 
things  considered,  what  is  here  is  superior  to 
what  has  been,  but  inferior  to  what  will  be. 
In  the  words  of  Emerson :  "The  reputations  of 
the  nineteenth  century  will  one  day  be  quoted 
to  prove  its  barbarism." 

Again,  society  is  not  a  general  mass  of  use- 
ful members,  some  of  whom  happen  to  be 
more  intelligent,  industrious  and  thrifty  than 
others.  Society  is  split  up  into  two  distinct 
classes,  those  who  produce  most  and  possess 
least,  and  those  who  produce  least  and  possess 
most.  This  deep-rooted  contradiction  is  at  the 
bottom  of  many  others.  It  accounts  to  a  great 
extent  for  the  double  code  of  ethics,  the  con- 
trast between  precept  and  practice,  between 
the  real  and  the  ideal — a  contrast  so  glaring 
that  Ibsen  makes  one  of  his  characters  say: 
"Don't  use  that  foreign  word:  Ideals.  We've 
got  the  excellent  native  word :  lies." 

Wages  and  profits,  poverty  and  plenty, 
slavery  and  mastery,  go  together,  Truth  is 


SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY  131 

relative,  not  absolute.  There  are  no  absolute 
standards  of  right  and  wrong.  Everything  is 
right  or  wrong  only  in  relation  to  every- 
thing else.  Estimates  are  of  importance  only 
as  they  conform  to  historical  needs.  There  is 
no  valid  comparison,  for  instance,  between 
the  conditon  of  the  workers  today  and  that  ol 
the  workers  of  decades  ago.  A  comparison  of 
moment  is  that  which  shows  whether  they 
own  a  larger  or  smaller  share  of  the  national 
wealth,  and  whether  they  are  masters  of  their 
lives  to  a  greater  extent  than  formerly. 

As  between  right  and  wrong,  wrong  is  the 
outgrown.  As  between  true  and  false,  false 
is  the  surpassed.  Truth  and  right  are  all  there 
is  to  false  and  wrong,  with  something  in  ad- 
dition. To  do  right  one  must  comprehend  up 
to  and  beyond  wrong.  Just  as  the  higher 
animals  have  grown  out  of  others  lower  in  the 
scale,  and  civilization  out  of  barbarism  and 
savagery,  so  what  is  morally  right  has  grown 
out  of  what  has  become  wrong.  Right  is 
superior  to  wrong — by  contrast. 

Socialism  is  capitalism,  and  all  that  has  gone 
before,  with  something  in  addition — collectiv- 
ism in  the  means  of  material  existence.  So- 
cialism has,  from  being  Utopian,  become 
scientific,  and  is  developing  from  theory  to 
practice.  Socialist  theories  are — by  contrast — 
more  satisfactory  than  others,  but  ready  to  be 
abandoned  should  a  better  explanation  of 
social  change  be  advanced.  And  they  are  not 
sufficient  unto  themselves.  They  are  broaden- 
ing in  the  light  of  fresher  knowledge.  "Nor 


122  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

do  the  Socialists  consider  Marx  infallible," 
comments  Hillquit.  "Marxism  is  a  living, 
progressive  theory  of  a  live,  growing  and  con- 
crete social  movement,  not  an  ossified  dogma 
nor  a  final  revelation.  And  the  disciples  of 
Karl  Marx  have  always  shown  a  true  apprecia- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  their  master  by  developing, 
extending  and,  when  necessary  in  the  light  of 
newer  developments,  even  modifying  his 
teachings."  Furthermore,  just  as  there  were 
other  playwrights,  precursors  and  contempo- 
raries of  Shakespeare,  who  helped  create  the 
Elizabethan  drama,  so  were  there  other  think- 
ers, precursors  and  contemporaries  of  Marx 
and  Engels,  who  helped  describe  the  scientific 
foundations  of  modern  Socialism. 

Historical  materialism  operates  in  the  do- 
main of  sociology.  Now,  sociologists  admit 
that  social  conditions  are  not  the  result  of 
one  specific,  pre-arranged,  carried-out  plan,  but 
exist  as  the  sum  total  of  conflicting  currents. 
What  is  necessary,  therefore,  is  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  operation  of  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  so  that,  for  the  future,  the  con- 
sequence of  every  act  may  be  anticipated. 

The  analysis  of  the  process  of  reasoning  is 
the  special  task  of  philosophy.  Philosophy 
takes  up  the  thread  where  historical  material- 
ism drops  it.  This  is  made  clear  by  Dietzgen 
when  he  says:  "The  positive  outcome  of 
philosophy  concerns  itself  with  specifying  the 
nature  of  the  human  mind.  It  shows  that  this 
special  nature  of  mind  does  not  occupy  an 
exceptional  position,  but  belongs  with  the 


SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY  133 

whole  of  nature  in  the  same  organization." 
Historical  materialism  is  supplemented  by 
materialistic  monism.  Monism  is  the  So- 
calist's  method  of  reasoning,  his  dialectic. 
"The  dialectic  is,"  so  Engels  says,  "as  a  matter 
of  fact,  nothing  but  the  science  of  the  universal 
laws  of  motion,  and  evolution  in  nature, 
human  society  and  thought."  And  again, 
"Nature  is  the  proof  of  dialectics,"  just  as 
history  is  the  proof  of  historical  materialism. 

The  dialectic  may  be  resolved  into  thesis, 
antithesis  and  synthesis.  Against  the  thesis 
that  the  idea  is  foremost  comes  the  antithesis 
that  the  material  is  foremost,  following  from 
which  the  synthesis  accepts  the  idea  through 
the  thing.  Against  the  thesis  of  hero  worship 
comes  the  antithesis  of  historical  conditions, 
following  from  which  is  the  synthesis  that,  to 
a  great  extent,  the  individual  is  the  instrument 
through  which  the  general  feeling  finds  ex- 
pression. The  Socialist  position  is  neither  at 
one  extreme  nor  the  other,  neither  idealism 
nor  the  old  materialism,  just  as  leading  a 
normal  life  is  to  be  neither  a  profligate  nor  a 
miser. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  non-Socialist. 
Possibly  he  is  given  to  ancestor  worship,  hold- 
ing that  the  proper  course  lies  in  a  "return  to 
the  faith  of  our  fathers."  He  fails  to  see  that, 
to  be  consistent  in  this,  civilization  would 
have  to  be  deprived  of  the  institutions 
it  has  acquired  since  their  time.  Our  fore- 
fathers, who  were  used  to  the  ray  of  the 
candle,  might  be  blinded  by  an  arc  light. 


124  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

Moreover,  what  of  value  there  was  in  their 
faith  persists  in  our  day.  For  the  good,  no 
less  than  the  evil,  liveth  after  them.  Indeed 
we  go  so  far  as  to  say,  in  view  of  our  ad- 
ditional wisdom  and  broader  mental  horizon, 
however  lofty  were  the  principles  and  ideals 
actuating  them,  the  principles  and  ideals  of 
our  generation  are  loftier  and  grander. 

Or,  again,  the  philosophy  of  the  non-So- 
cialist is  based  upon  notions  that  have  been 
abstracted  from  actual  conditions — abstract 
principles  of  right,  justice,  equality  and  the 
like.  It  is  a  philosophy  of  ideas  and  dangles 
in  the  air.  Its  meaning  is  lost,  buried  in  the 
grave  of  antiquities.  It  boasts  of  no  body,  no 
substance.  It  is  a  philosophy  that  looks  upon 
society  as  a  conflict,  not  of  men  and  economic 
interests,  but  of  ideas  of  justice. 

An  example  of  a  philosophy  of  abstract 
principles  is  anarchism,  in  many  respects  the 
antithesis  of  Socialism.  Plechanoff  correctly 
calls  the  anarchist  a  Utopian,  defining  the 
Utopian  as  "one  who,  starting  from  an  abstract 
principle,  seeks  for  a  perfect  social  organiza- 
tion." The  anarchist  forgets,  it  is  not  prin- 
ciples men  profess  which  we  must  consider, 
but  what  they  perform.  Not  creeds,  but  deeds. 
Jefferson,  who  is  often  quoted  as  having  given 
expression  to  the  sentiment:  "That  govern- 
ment is  best  which  governs  least,"  stretched 
the  authority  vested  in  him  as  president  to 
acquire  the  Louisiana  territory.  A  philosophy 
is  known  by  its  fruit.  So  Plechanoff  quotes 
Proudhon,  acclaimed  the  father  of  anarchism, 


SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY  125 

offering  this  moth-worn  homily  as  a  solution 
of  the  labor  question :  "Workers,  hold  out  your 
hands  to  your  employers ;  and  you,  employers, 
do  not  deliberately  repulse  the  advances  of 
those  who  were  your  wage-earners." 

Proudhon  proved  himself  a  Utopian  when  he 
devised  a  banking  system  for  the  exchange  of 
labor  products  years  after  Robert  Owen's.  As 
in  the  case  of  the  pursuit  of  the  absolute,  the 
philosophy  of  abstract  principles  paints  a 
capitalist  Utopia.  So  Kautsky  says:  "Anarch- 
ism arose  from  the  reaction  of  the  petty  bour- 
geoisie against  capitalism,  which  threatens 
and  oppresses  it." 

Anarchists  join  with  votaries  of  capitalism 
in  decrying  the  tendency  to  rely  on  "paternal- 
ism ;"  in  their  looking  upon  Socialist  control 
as  a  despotic  bureaucracy  that  would  stifle 
"individual  incentive"  and  "personal  liberty," 
and  in  warning  us  that  Socialism  is  the 
"coming  slavery."  Keeping  pace  with  capi- 
talistic thought,  moreover,  anarchists  advise 
the  workers  to  refrain  from  voting  just  when 
the  ruling  class  is  exerting  itself  to  dis- 
franchise them. 

A  philosophy  laying  stress  upon  the  aris- 
tocracy of  ideas  is  one  way  or  another  a  phil- 
osophy of  the  aristocratic  class  in  society.  The 
philosophy  of  the  common  people  is  carried 
upon  the  broad,  democratic  back  of  the  real- 
ities of  life. 

It  is  because  necessity  is  the  mother  of  in- 
vention— especially  material  necessity — that 
there  are  simultaneous  inventions  in  mechani- 


126  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

cal  appliances  and  simultaneous  spinning  of 
like  philosophies.  So  it  happens  that,  while 
every  philosopher  imagines  his  system  to  be 
right,  his  truths  to  be  "natural"  or  "eternal," 
and  his  social  scheme  to  be  perfect,  they  are, 
none  the  less,  the  outcome  of  conditions  at  a 
certain  time  and  place,  and  serviceable,  if  at 
all,  only  in  their  proper  relation.  What  was 
once  the  faith  of  the  cottage  has  often  become 
the  creed  of  the  castle.  So  Nietzsche  says,  in 
his  "Human,  All  Too  Human,"  which  may  be 
taken  as  a  refutation  of  the  extreme  philos- 
ophy that  goes  by  his  name:  "Yet  everything 
uttered  by  the  philosopher  on  the  subject  of 
man  is,  in  the  last  resort,  nothing  more  than  a 
piece  of  testimony  concerning  man  during  a 
very  limited  period  of  time,"  In  so  far  as  they 
did  not  echo  former  philosophers,  the  "natural 
rights  of  man"  of  the  French  Revolution  and 
the  "unalienable  rights"  of  the  American 
Revolution  are  the  rights  of  the  rising  French 
and  American  bourgeoisie,  contingent  upon 
the  advent  of  modern  industry. 

It  is  the  important  fact  of  modern  industry, 
too,  the  handling  of  enormous  instruments  of 
production,  requiring  the  co-operative  labor  of 
millions  of  workers,  which  shows  that  the 
problem  confronting  us  is  social,  not  personal. 
For  as  one  question  after  another  assumes  the 
proportions  of  a  social  quantity  indicating  that 
a  social  cause  has  brought  it  into  being  and 
that  it  must  have  a  social  solution,  it  goes 
without  saying  that  its  solution  is  not  to  be 
found  in  so-called  individualism,  but  in  grow- 


SOCIALIST    PHILOSOPHY  137 

ing  solidarity;  not  in  the  independence  of  the 
ego,  but  in  the  interdependence  of  humanity. 

At  the  same  time  the  psychological  element 
growing  out  of  the  fact  of  the  class  struggle, 
class  consciousness,  is  also  of  great  import- 
ance. It  is  not  enough  that  economic  con- 
ditions should  be  deplorable  and  that  there 
should  be  pity  for  the  distress  of  the  poor.  The 
point  must  be  reached  when  the  workers 
realize  that  their  salvation  is  to  be  found  only 
in  their  own  action  as  a  class. 

But  even  in  the  field  of  psychology,  material- 
ism has  come  to  be  considered  of  prime  im- 
portance. "At  present  psychology  is  on  the 
materialistic  tack,"  declares  Professor  James, 
"and  ought  in  the  interest  of  ultimate  success 
to  be  allowed  full  headway  even  by  those  who 
are  certain  she  will  never  fetch  the  port  with- 
out putting  down  the  helm  once  more."  And 
then  comes  Professor  Elmer  Gates,  who,  in 
his  work  on  "The  Mind  and  Brain,"  declares 
his  experiments  show  that  training  the  mental 
faculties  increases  the  number  of  brain  cells  of 
the  localities  brought  into  play,  that  cells  are 
multiplied  by  agreeable  sensations  and  dimin- 
ished by  disagreeable  emotion,  that  mind  is  a 
purely  physiological  function  and  that  mind 
building  is  just  as  reasonable  an  aim  as  body 
building.  But,  more  than  that,  historical 
materialism  explains  why  psychology  busies 
itself  with  the  crowd  and  mass  movements, 
rather  than  with  isolated  persons,  why  it  has 
developed  from  individualistic  to  social. 

The  Socialist  philosophy,  like  all  others,  is 


128  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

partisan,  with  this  reservation :  It  is  the  view 
point  of  the  most  numerous  class,  the  class 
most  necessary  to  the  existence  of  society,  and, 
as  such,  it  comes  nearest  to  being  the  view- 
point of  society  as  a  whole,  out  of  which  will 
grow  the  monistic  philosophy  of  the  future. 

At  the  same  time  the  Socialist  subscribes  to 
the  sentiment  expressed  by  Engels,  shortly 
before  his  death,  to  Labriola:  "We  are  as  yet 
at  the  very  beginning  of  things."  For  society 
is  not  of  one  piece.  It  is  the  sum  total  of 
many  divergent  interests  and  tendencies,  to- 
gether with  numerous  relics  in  institutions  and 
thought  from  former  ages.  No  philosophy  can 
exhaust  society.  And  for  us,  just  as  Marxian 
economic  theories  cover  only  capitalist  pro- 
duction, just  as  the  theory  of  the  class  struggle 
does  not  explain  all  conflict  but  only  that  due 
to  the  division  of  society  into  classes,  just  as 
historical  materialism  does  not  account  for 
all  social  relations  but  rather  offers  a  method 
for  finding  the  connection  between  them,  so 
does  the  Socialist  philosophy  as  a  whole  not 
aim  to  interpret  everything  about  us  but  only 
those  more  important  activities  that  go  far 
toward  determining  the  general  welfare. 

The  Socialist,  to  make  use  of  a  common  ex- 
pression, "takes  things  philosophically."  He 
knows  that  the  great  reform  waves  that  sweep 
over  the  country,  and  the  confusion  of  issues 
in  campaign  times  are  not  agencies  of  reaction 
so  much  as  they  are  symptoms  of  public  dis- 
satisfaction. He  knows  that,  beneath  the 
smoke,  the  fires  of  social  change  are  blazing 


SOCIALIST    PHILOStTPHY  129 

ever  more  brightly.  He  knows  that  theories, 
doctrines,  philosophies  and  movements  must 
pass  through  the  crucible  of  experience.  The 
Socialist  takes  things  philosophically  for  his 
cause  is  reared  upon  the  solid  foundation  of 
historical  conditions. 

While  the  Marxian  theories  are  indispen- 
sable for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  structure 
and  trend  of  society,  they  must  be  taken  only 
as  theories.  It  is  only  as  they  are  continually 
examined  in  the  light  of  experience  that  they 
do  not  ossify  into  cold  formulae  but  remain  a 
live  philosophy  and  a  philosophy  of  life. 

It  is  because  these  theories  are  in  harmony 
with  everyday  affairs,  that  Socialism  is  already 
the  North  Star  for  tens  of  millions  of  people 
of  all  countries.  The  Socialist  philosophy  is 
in  the  safe  keeping  of  the  Socialist  movement. 
It  is  as  broad  as  the  movement  itself,  as  vast 
and  as  grand  in  its  aspirations  and  ideals.  That 
is  why  it  has  come  to  be  the  most  precious 
stone  in  the  sling  of  the  modern  David,  Labor, 
with  which  to  strike  down  the  Goliath  of  class 
rule. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP 

The  fundamental  aim  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment is  to  make  the  principal  means  of  wealth 
production,  such  as  the  lands,  mines,  mills  and 
railroads,  the  collective  property  of  the  whole 
people.  There  necessarily  follows  democratic 
administration,  the  obligation  of  all  able- 
bodied  persons  to  perform  useful  service  and 
the  blending  of  freedom  and  labor  so  as  to 
secure  the  maximum  of  individuality  and 
social  efficiency. 

To  effect  the  contemplated  change  of  owner- 
ship from  private  to  public,  the  workers,  as  a 
class,  must  control  the  government.  It  is  the 
winning  of  complete  political  power,  and  the 
subsequent  transfer  of  ownership,  that  con- 
stitutes the  social  revolution. 

The  revolution  is  the  change,  not  the  man- 
ner of  the  change.  The  social  revolution  may 
come  peacefully,  without  anything  approach- 
ing civil  war.  On  the  other  hand,  plenty  of 
blood  may  be  shed  without  there  following  any 
material  improvement  in  the  situation  of  the 
workers.  So  Hillquit,  one  of  America's  fore- 
most 'Socialists,  declares  in  his  work  on  "So- 
cialism in  Theory  and  Practice:"  "Violence  is 
but  an  accident  of  the  social  revolution;  it  is 
by  no  means  its  necessary  accompaniment,  and 

130 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  131 

it  has  no  place  in  the  Socialist  program."  And 
Kautsky,  acknowledged  to  be  possibly  the 
foremost  exponent  of  modern  Socialism,  says 
in  "The  Social  Revolution:"  "Everyone  is  a 
revolutionary  whose  aim  is  that  a  hitherto  op- 
pressed class  should  conquer  the  power  of  the 
state."  And,  further  on,  "Even  if  a  revolution 
were  not  a  means  to  an  end,  but  an  ultimate 
end  in  itself  which  could  not  be  bought  at 
too  dear  a  price,  be  it  ever  so  much  blood,  one 
could  not  desire  war  as  a  means  to  let  loose 
the  revolution.  For  it  is  the  most  irrational 
means  to  this  end."  That  explains  why  such 
Socialists  as  Hyndman  and  Bax,  in  England, 
speak  of  the  question  of  violence  as  being 
incidental.  The  revolution  is,  therefore,  an 
end,  not  the  means  to  that  end. 

Socialists  agree  with  Liebknecht  in  ridiculing 
the  notion  that  "tomorrow  it  starts."  For  as 
Engels,  in  the  introduction  to  the  "Communist 
Manifesto,"  written  as  late  as  1888,  said  in 
substantiation  of  Marx's  position:  "One  thing 
especially  was  proved  by  the  commune,  viz., 
that  'the  working  class  cannot  simply  lay  hold 
of  the  ready-made  state  machinery,  and  wield 
it  for  its  own  purposes.' "  Hypothetically,  the 
social  revolution  may  come  at  one  sweep.  But 
in  the  discussion  of  tactics,  the  possibility  ot 
such  a  cataclysm  must  be  held  in  abeyance. 

Especially  true  is  it  for  Socialism  that 
history  often  does  not  repeat  itself.  For  the 
coming  reconstitution  of  society  is  unlike 
former  ones.  These  were  in  the  interest  of 
minorities ;  they  left  society  divided  into 


132  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

classes  and  altered  only  the  form  of  the  ex- 
ploitation of  labor.  The  coming  change  has 
in  view  the  ending  of  exploitation  and  the 
abolition  of  class  distinctions.  It  is  for  the 
benefit  of  the  vast  majority,  even,  broadly 
speaking,  of  society  as  a  whole.  The  tactics 
of  the  Socialist  movement  are,  perforce,  es- 
sentially different  from  those  of  other  move- 
ments. 

At  the  same  time,  the  Socialist  move- 
ment is  the  reflex  of  actual  conditions.  At 
best  its  program  is  a  more  or  less  accurate 
analysis  of  the  tendency  of  social  progress. 
It  takes  the  part  of  the  workers  in  the  struggle 
of  the  classes.  It  keeps  pace  with  the 
awakened  intelligence  of  the  workers,  securing 
for  them  what  relief  it  can  while  holding  fast 
to  its  ultimate  ideal. 

Nor  is  the  Socialist  movement  the  only 
agency  working  for  a  better  social  order. 
There  are  several  others.  The  attitude  of  So- 
cialists toward  these  other  movements  is  very 
well  presented  by  Kautsky:  "I  must  not  be 
misunderstood  in  the  sense.  .  .  .  that  I  think 
co-operative  societies,  trades  unions,  the  entry 
of  the  Socialist  party  into  municipalities  and 
parliaments,  or  the  securing  of  individual  re- 
forms, to  be  worthless.  Nothing  could  be 
further  from  my  intention  than  that.  On  the 
contrary,  that  is  all  of  great  service  to  the 
proletariat;  it  only  becomes  of  no  importance 
as  a  means  of  staving  off  the  revolution — in 
other  words,  the  capture  of  political  power  by 
the  proletariat." 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  133 

Hillquit  is  one  with  Kautsky:  "The  So- 
cialists do  not  foster  the  illusion,"  he  says, 
"that  voluntary  co-operative  societies  of  labor, 
either  for  production  or  for  consumption,  could 
gradually  and  by  the  strength  of  their  own 
development,  supersede  the  prevalent  capital- 
ist methods  of  production  and  distribution." 
And  speaking  of  England,  in  which  country 
co-operation  has  flourished  for  three-quarters 
of  a  century,  Sidney  Webb,  in  "Socialism  in 
England,"  says:  "Less than  one  four-hundredth 
part  of  the  industry  of  the  country  is  yet  car- 
ried on  by  co-operation.  The  whole  range  of 
industrial  development  seems  against  it,  and 
no  ground  for  hope  in  co-operation  as  an 
answer  to  the  social  problem  can  be  gained 
from  economic  history."  In  Belgium,  where 
co-operative  societies  have  attained  the 
greatest  measure  of  success,  they  were  started 
before  production  on  a  large  scale  had  become 
established. 

Of  trades  unions,  Kautsky  says :  "I  regard 
the  trades  unions  as  an  equally  indispensable 
weapon  in  the  proletarian  class  war  as  a  So- 
cialist party,  and  both  are  intimately  de- 
pendent on  one  another."  Hillquit  estimates 
the  membership  of  trades  unions  throughout 
the  world  to  be  11,000,000,  or  a  million  more 
than  the  estimated  Socialist  vote.  The  efficacy 
of  trades  unionism  depends,  of  course,  upon 
conditions  peculiar  to  each  country.  While 
in  many  countries  trades  unionism  is  a  very 
powerful  weapon,  Bebel  is  of  the  opinion  that 
it  is,  for  the  future,  of  little  avail  in  America 


184  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

because  of  the  strength  of  concentrated  capital. 
This  by  no  means  reflects  against  "mass" 
strikes  for  better  conditions  of  labor  or  political 
rights.  But  mass  strikes  are  not  generally  con- 
sidered dependable  means  for  accomplishing 
the  social  revolution. 

The  nature  of  the  weapons  used  in  the  class 
war  from  time  to  time  depends  upon  circum- 
stances that  are  forever  changing.  That  ex- 
plains why  Socialists  do  not  underestimate  the 
good  work  done  by  organized  labor,  co- 
operative associations,  workers'  insurance  so- 
cieties and  farmers'  alliances,  in  their  own 
field  of  endeavor.  But  as  the  relation  between 
the  two  classes,  notwithstanding,  continues  to 
intensify,  Socialists  come  to  lay  more  and  more 
stress  upon  the  winning  of  political  power. 

In  entering  politics  Socialists  act  in- 
dependently of  other  parties.  The  Socialist 
party  does  not  compromise.  It  declines  to 
support  candidates  of  other  parties,  or  to  ac- 
cept ,  endorsements  from  them.  "For  our 
party  and  for  our  party  tactics,"  says  Lieb- 
knecht,  in  "No  Compromise,"  "there  is  but  one 
valid  basis :  the  basis  of  the  class  struggle,  out 
of  which  the  Socialist  party  has  sprung  up,  and 
out  of  which  alone  it  can  draw  the  necessary 
strength  to  bid  defiance  to  every  storm  and  to 
all  its  enemies."  Hillquit  emphasizes  this 
point.  "Experience  has  abundantly  demon- 
strated," he  says,  "that  whenever  a  party  of 
the  propertied  classes  has  invited  the  political 
co-operation  of  the  working  class,  the  latter 
has,  with  few  exceptions,  been  used  by  it  as  a 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  135 

cat's  paw  for  the  furtherance  of  its  own  class 
interests."  And  while,  in  practical  work,  con- 
cessions have  to  be  made  in  going  from 
principles  to  tactics,  which  Liebknecht  was  one 
of  the  first  to  see,  he  warns  us  that  "questions 
of  tactics  very  easily  shift  into  questions  of 
principle."  So,  again,  Hillquit  says:  "The  So- 
cialist platform  is  the  only  political  platform 
which  is  practically  identical  in  its  main 
features  and  important  details  in  all  civilized 

countries We  observe  that  while  the 

details  of  Socialist  policy  and  tactics  vary  in 
every  country,  and  are  modified  with  every 
economic  and  political  change,  its  most  salient 
features  are  identical  everywhere,  and  have 
undergone  but  little  change  since  the  days 
when  the  Socialist  party  first  established  itself 
in  practical  politics." 

The  Socialists  of  each  country  can  face  their 
problems  only  in  their  own  way.  So  Herron 
says,  in  "The  Day  of  Judgment :"  "The  might- 
iest voice  lifted  in  the  German  Reichstag  is 
that  of  Bebel ;  and  there  is  nothing  concerning 
the  German  people  that  Bebel  does  not  have 
his  say  about.  .  .  .  The  development  of  Italian 
Socialism  has  been  through  the  distinctly 
Italian  appeal  made  by  Ferri  and  by  those  who 
work  with  him." 

A  few  general  points  in  Socialist  tactics 
may  be  established  at  the  outset.  Convinced 
that  the  institutions  of  a  period  are  largely  the 
reflex  of  material  conditions,  and,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  to  be  altered,  will  be  altered  largely 
through  the  change  of  those  conditions,  the 


186  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

Socialist  party  does  not  concern  itself,  for  in- 
stance, with  religious  matters  or  the  form  of 
the  family.  Belief  in  a  supreme  being  cannot 
be  eliminated  by  decree,  as  the  French 
Revolutionists  imagined,  nor  re-establishd  by 
proclamation,  as  the  reaction  thought.  So- 
cialists therefore  do  not  permit  their  move- 
ment to  be  divided  by  sex,  creed,  race, 
nationality  or  other  distinctions.  In  this  re- 
spect, as  in  many  others,  the  Socialist  move- 
ment is  inclusive  rather  than  exclusive. 

Again,  as  an  innocent  speculation  sometimes 
indulged  in,  under  Socialism  the  state  will  lose 
such  coercive  functions  as  spring  from  class 
rule,  and  its  police  powers,  under  the  superior 
environment,  may  "die  out"  altogether.  But 
while,  for  many,  this  is  a  "consummation  de- 
voutly to  be  wished,"  like  all  consummations 
it  cannot  be  reached  by  wishing,  or  by  ar- 
bitrarily demanding  it.  It  is  one  of  the  se- 
crets of  the  future,  and  concerns  Socialists  at 
present  very  little. 

In  our  own  country  we  are  confronted  by 
conditions  peculiar  to  ourselves.  This  nation 
is  an  amalgam  of  troops  of  immigrants  from  all 
lands,  with  different  traditions,  creeds,  and 
ideals,  which  have  been  more  or  less  as- 
similated in  what  we  term  the  American  spirit. 
Apart  from  the  important  cleavage  into  classes, 
the  various  sections  of  the  country  have  their 
own  economic  interests.  The  result  of  such  a 
clash  of  divergent  issues  can  only  with 
difficulty  be  refined  down  to  something  in  the 
shape  of  a  broad  national  policy.  This  may 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  137 

be  noted  in  the  fact  that  from  the  very  first 
our  government  has  sought  to  solve  all 
questions  by  compromise,  in  which  the  aroma 
of  the  fleshpot  was,  in  no  little  degree,  the 
guiding  motive,  compromise  that  too  often 
only  procrastinated  the  day  of  settlement 
that  jeopardized  the  very  existence  of  the 
nation. 

One  thing,  however,  is  quite  positive.  Con- 
sidering the  pains  taken  by  the  framers  of  the 
constitution  to  thwart  the  will  of  the  people  at 
every  turn,  permitting  the  bill  of  rights  to 
slip  in  as  amendments,  in  order  to  silence 
criticism,  which  Professor  J.  Allen  Smith  well 
shows  in  his  work  on  "The  Spirit  of  American 
Government,"  it  is  doubtful  if  a  greater  myth 
has  ever  been  invented  that  that  of  American 
liberty.  Of  no  country  is  it  truer  than  of 
America,  that  the  government  is  merely  "a 
committee  for  managing  the  common  affairs 
of  the  whole  bourgeoisie." 

America  is  a  country  of  two  parties.  Not 
that  the  distinction  between  parties  has  always 
been  easy  to  define.  In  point  of  fact  parties 
have  not  hesitated  to  change  front  in  inter- 
preting the  constitution  "strictly"  or  "loosely" 
as  it  suited  them.  But  every  minor  party  has 
either  quickly  become  a  major  party  or  its 
demands  have  been  absorbed,  if  not  emas- 
culated, by  one  of  the  larger  parties.  When 
this  has  not  happened,  the  minor  party  soon 
sunk  into  insignificance. 

Regarding  the  questions  which  presumably 
separate  Republicans  and  Democrats,  James 


138  SOCFALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

Bryce,  in  his  "American  Commonwealth," 
written  in  1896,  says,  after  enumerating  several 
national  matters:  "Neither  party  has  anything 
definite  to  say  upon  these  issues;  neither  party 

has  any  principles,  any  distinctive  tenets 

All  has  been  lost  except  office  or  the  hope  of 
it."  In  municipal  elections,  as  is  well  known, 
the  deliberate  attempt  is  being  made  to  wipe 
out  party  lines.  It  is  recognized  that  the  two 
old  parties  are  the  obverse  and  reverse  sides  of 
the  same  shield.  "Each  equally  leans  upon 
the  respectable  and  wealthy  classes,"  continues 
Bryce,  "the  Republicans  more  particularly  on 
these  classes  in  the  North,  the  Democrats  on 
the  same  classes  in  the  South."  Since  1872 
both  parties  have,  in  their  platforms,  mentioned 
the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor  to  be  an 
issue.  But  they  did  little  more  than  mention 
it.  Still,  if  the  Republican  party,  which  has 
been  in  control  practically  ever  since  the  civil 
war,  has  demonstrated  its  incapacity  to  cope 
with  the  labor  question,  there  is  no  hope  that 
the  Democratic  party  will  ever  be  given  the 
opportunity  to  try  its  hand,  for  there  are  many 
signs  of  a  coming  disintegration  of  the 
Democracy.  The  Republican  party,  moreover, 
undoubtedly  has  the  confidence  of  the  larger 
capitalists,  so  that  there  is  every  reason  foi 
believing  that  the  future  contest  will  be  be- 
tween Republicans  and  Socialists. 

This  brings  us  to  the  problem  of  the  So- 
cialist party's  platform.  In  that  platform,  the 
amount  of  importance  placed  in  the  working 
program  of  industrial,  political  and  social 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  139 

measures  comprising  its  more  immediate  de- 
mands, depends  entirely  upon  general  cir- 
cumstances. If  it  is  true,  for  example,  that  the 
trades  unions  in  America  are  no  longer  able  to 
cope  with  organized  capital,  it  will,  of  neces- 
sity, result  in  the  'Socialist  party's  in- 
corporating their  demands  in  its  program. 
This,  indeed,  is  already  happening.  And 
trades  unions,  for  their  part,  are  coming  more 
and  more  to  make  the  securing  of  political 
power  part  of  their  aim.  For  Socialists  do 
not  accept  the  theory  that  the  misery  of  the 
workers  should  be  permitted  to  increase. 
Moreover,  what  melioration  the  Socialist  party 
is  able  to  work  does  not  bear  the  taint  of  pau- 
perism. It  is  received  as  part  payment  of 
labor's  rightful  heritage.  Nor  is  that 
melioration  desired  simply  as  palliative.  It  is 
accepted  as  being  in  line  with  the  progress  of 
the  workng  class. 

Immediate  measures  are  not  sufficient  unto 
themselves.  Thus  even  Jaures,  who  represents 
the  more  moderate  wing  of  the  Socialist  party, 
says  in  his  "Studies  in  'Socialism:"  "So  long 
as  a  class  does  not  own  and  govern  the  whole 
social  machine,  it  can  seize  a  few  factories  and 
yards  if  it  wants  to,  but  it  really  possesses 
nothing.  To  hold  in  one's  hands  a  few  pebbles 
of  a  deserted  road  is  not  to  be  the  master  of 
transportation."  For  this  reason  the  working 
program  must  be  considered  as  an  organic 
whole,  which,  while  it  serves  the  more  proxim- 
ate needs  of  the  wealth  producers,  is  neverthe- 


140  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

less  animated  by  the  ideal  of  complete  emanci- 
pation from  the  dominion  of  capital. 

Since  Socialism  is  not  a  ready-made  system, 
but  an  organic  growth,  in  parliamentary  activ- 
ity Socialists  must  work  with  the  material  at 
hand,  even  to  completing  the  work  begun,  or 
imperfectly  done,  by  their  predecessors  of  an- 
other political  faith.  In  fact,  Socialists  can 
support  many  measures  advanced  by  their  op- 
ponents. Thus  Marx  designated  as  a  revolu 
tion  the  ten-hour  factory  law  secured  in  Eng- 
land through  the  conflict  between  capitalists 
and  landlords,  because  it  involved  the  new 
principle  of  state  aid  for  the  workers.  And  so 
Bebel  supported  Bismarck's  working  people's 
insurance  law,  although  it  was  one  of  the 
measures  with  which  Bismarck  hoped  to  stamp 
out  the  growing  Socialist  sentiment. 

Because  victories  come  first  in  municipal- 
ities, it  is  here  principally  that  Socialists  have, 
thus  far,  been  able  to  shape  legislation  and 
administration  to  their  liking.  Furthermore, 
because  it  has  its  finger  upon  the  seat  of 
government,  and  can,  guided  by  a  real  social 
conscience,  keep  that  "eternal  vigilance"  which 
Wendell  Phillips  held  to  be  "the  price  of 
liberty,"  the  municipality  is  apt  to  be  entrusted 
with  the  greatest  measure  of  power  by  So- 
cialists. So  Hillquit  says:  "While  the  state 
as  such  will  probably  retain  certain  general 
functions,  it  will  no  doubt  be  found  more 
convenient  to  vest  the  more  vital  and  direct 
functions  in  political  organizations  embracing 
smaller  territories.  The  'Socialists  regard  the 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  141 

present  city  or  township  as  the  nucleus  of  such 
a  political  unit." 

In  such  municipalities  as  the  Socialists  con- 
trol, school  children  are  fed  and  clothed, 
municipal  enterprises  extended,  ampler  pro- 
vision made  for  public  institutions,  legal  ad- 
vice furnished  gratuitously,  and  steps  taken  to 
improve  the  condition  of  the  workers  in  many 
other  directions.  In  his  pamphlet  entitled 
"What  Socialists  would  do  if  they  Won  in 
this  City,"  A.  M.  Simons  shows  how  the  ex- 
perience of  Socialists  in  foreign  countries 
could  be  utilized  in  America. 

Municipal  ownership  is  not  considered  of 
nearly  so  much  importance  as  the  measures 
just  cited.  Not  that  municipal  control  might 
not  be  of  considerable  service  under  favorable 
circumstances.  Among  the  suggestions  for 
such  ownership  the  Socialist  party  advisory 
program  of  1904  mentions  the  following:  All 
industries  dependent  on  franchises,  street  cars, 
electric  and  gas  lighting,  telephones,  ice 
houses,  coal  and  wood  yards.  It  may  be  re- 
marked, in  passing,  that  in  this  country  in  1899 
already  more  than  half  of  the  waterworks  were 
owned  and  operated  by  the  municipalities,  and 
about  one-seventh  of  the  electric  light  plants. 
What  hampers  the  efforts  of  Socialists  in 
municipalities  is  the  fact  that,  to  use  Professor 
Smith's  words:  "Local  self-government  is 
recognized  neither  in  theory  nor  in  practice 
under  our  political  scheme."  The  rights  of 
our  cities  are  stipulated  in  their  charters, 
granted  by  the  state  legislatures.  What  we  call 


142  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

municipal  government  exists  only  by  suffer- 
ance and  is  restricted  in  every  direction.  Trie 
autonomy  of  the  city,  as  regards  all  matters 
in  which  it  alone  is  concerned,  is  one  of  the 
first  demands  of  Socialist  legislators. 

Municipal  activity  is  only  a  beginning  to- 
ward Socalism.  In  his  analysis  of  this  question 
Kautsky  says:  "Municipal  Socialism  finds  its 
limitations  in  the  existing  order  of  state  and 
society,  even  where  universal  suffrage  pre- 
vails in  the  communes.  The  commune  is  al- 
ways tied  down  to  the  general  economic  and 
political  conditions,  and  cannot  extricate  itself 
from  them  singly." 

In  this  connection  it  may  also  be  observed 
that,  while  every  political  victory  is  of  some 
benefit  to  the  workers,  it  may  happen  when 
they  secure  control  of  one  department  of  the 
government,  such  as  the  legislative,  the 
functions  of  some  other  department,  either 
judicial  or  executive,  will  be  extended  so  as  to 
destroy  the  workers'  power.  So  Hillquit  says : 
"The  work  of  systematically  rebuilding  the 
economic  and  political  structure  of  modern  so- 
ciety on  the  lines  of  Socialism,  can  begin  only 
when  the  Socialists  have  the  control  of  the 
entire  political  machinery  of  the  state,  i.  e., 
of  all  the  legislative,  executive  and  judicial 
organs  of  the  government."  Each  victory  is, 
consequently,  but  an  incident  making  for  the 
social  revolution. 

In  state  and  national  parliamentary  bodies 
more  important  steps  can  be  taken.  It  is  here 
that  work  is  provided  for  the  unemployed, 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  143 

whose  number  constantly  increases  with  the 
perfection  of  machinery,  the  elimination  of  the 
waste  of  competition  and  the  commercializa- 
tion of  backward  countries.  Here,  too,  the 
fight  is  made  for  universal  suffrage,  the  ex- 
tension of  political  liberty  and  the  strengthen- 
ing of  the  economic  and  social  position  of  the 
workers.  Larger  problems  are  considered. 

Whether  government  ownership  is  of 
benefit  to  the  mass  of  the  people  depends  upon 
the  influence  they  exercise  over  the  govern- 
ment. It  is  not  of  itself  necessarily  a  step  in 
advance.  The  best  that  can  be  said  for  it 
theoretically  is  contained  in  this  utterance  of 
Engels:  "State  ownership  of  the  productive 
forces  is  not  the  solution  of  the  conflict  (be- 
tween workers  and  capitalists),  but  concealed 
within  it  are  the  technical  conditions  that 
form  the  elements  of  that  solution."  Covering 
its  practical  operations,  at  the  annual  con- 
vention of  the  German  Socialist  party  in  1892, 
the  following  resolution  was  passed :  "State 
Socialism  so-called  inasmuch  as  it  aims  at  state 
ownership  for  fiscal  purposes,  seeks  to  sub- 
stitute the  state  for  the  private  capitalist,  and 
to  confer  on  it  the  power  to  subject  the  people 
to  the  double  yoke  of  economic  exploitation 
and  political  slavery." 

In  the  broader  field  of  national  activity,  the 
Socialist  party  has  to  deal  with  the  relation  of 
the  various  elements  among  the  wealth  pro- 
ducers. The  proper  attitude  to  be  maintained 
toward  agricultural  holdings  is  one  of  the  most 
intricate  and  difficult  of  questions.  Simons, 


144  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

in  his  "American  Farmer,"  the  only  serious 
attempt  made  by  an  American  Socialist  to 
handle  the  agrarian  problem,  says :  "One  trade 
after  another  has  left  the  farm  and  farming 
itself  has  been  transformed  until  the  farmer 
has  become  a  specialist  working  within  one 
little  narrow  field  and  as  absolutely  dependent 
upon  outside  social  forces  as  the  artisan  at  his 
bench."  Simons  deems  the  average  farmer 
little  more  than  an  employing  agent  and  resi- 
dent supervisor  for  the  exploiting  class,  whose 
wage  does  not  rise  far  above  the  subsistence 
level.  Because  he  declares  the  small  farmer  to 
be  the  "essential  economic  factor  in  agriculture 
in  exactly  the  same  way  that  the  wage-worker 
is  the  essential  economic  factor  in  gen- 
eral capitalistic  production,"  Simons  accepts 
Kautsky's  definition:  "The  proletarian  of  the 
country  is  the  farmer." 

In  discussing  this  question,  Kautsky  says 
that,  "where  small  agricultural  holdings  pre- 
vail, there  the  organs  of  social  or  Socialist 
production  in  agriculture  have  first  to  be 
created,  and  that  can  only  be  the  result  of  a 
slow  development."  Continuing,  he  says :  "No 
Socialist  of  any  weight  or  standing  has  ever  as 
yet  demanded  that  the  peasants  should  be  ex- 
propriated or  their  lands  confiscated."  Yet 
Kautsky  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  "the 
peasants  will  amalgamate  their  holdings  and 
work  them  in  common." 

In  answer  to  the  argument  that  under  com- 
munal ownership  the  farmer  will  not  have  the 
interest  in  the  land  he  has  when  it  is  his  own 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  145 

property,  Ferri  says:  "We  see,  for  example, 
that,  even  in  our  present  individualist  world, 
those  survivals  of  collective  property  in  land — 
to  which  Laveleye  has  so  strikingly  called  the 
attention  of  sociologists — continue  to  be  culti- 
vated and  yield  a  return  which  is  not  lower 
than  that  yielded  by  lands  held  in  private 
ownership,  although  these  communist  or  col- 
lectivist  farmers  have  only  the  right  of  use 
and  enjoyment,  and  not  the  absolute  title." 

Small  trade,  sometimes  regarded  as  of  mo- 
ment to  the  middle  class,  Vandervelde  declares 
to  be  "the  special  refuge  of  the  cripples  of 
capitalism,"  who  often  have  "only  a  phantom 
of  independence,  and  are  really  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  great  money  lenders,  manufacturers  or 
merchants."  Where  this  is  not  true,  it  is 
doubtful  if  they  would  be  disturbed  to  any 
extent.  For  Socialism  is  not  of  one  piece  and 
pattern,  but,  rather,  the  outgrowth  of  the 
multiform  relations  prevailing  under  capital- 
ism. So  Kautsky  tells  us:  "The  most  varied 
kinds  of  property  in  the  means  of  production, 
state,  municipal,  co-operative  (distributive), 
co-operative  (productive),  private — could  exist 
side  by  side  in  a  Socialist  society.  .  .  .  The 
same  variety  of  the  economic  machinery  as 
exists  to-day  would  be  quite  possible  in  a 
Socialist  society.  Only  the  hurry  and  the 
bustle,  the  fighting  and  the  struggling,  the 
extermination  and  the  ruin  of  the  present  day 
struggle  for  life  will  be  eliminated,  just  as  the 
antagonism  between  the  exploiter  and  the  ex- 
ploited will  disappear." 


14<J  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

Socialists,  as  is  well  known,  are  opposed  to 
militarism.  Says  Kampffmeyer,  in  his  little 
work  on  German  Socialist  tactics:  "Since  the 
first  days  of  its  vigorously  joyful  existence, 
until  its  fully  endowed  maturity,  there  sounds 
through  all  its  party  declarations  the  rough 
and  revolutionary  word :  'For  this  military 
system,  not  a  man  and  not  a  penny.' " 

There  is  reason  enough  for  this  stand  merely 
on  the  score  of  the  millions  wasted  in  metal, 
powder  and  rations,  let  alone  the  toll  of  life 
and  suffering  paid  by  the  workers.  To  form 
some  idea  of  what  this  price  is,  Karl  Lieb- 
knecht  estimates  the  present  military  expendi- 
tures of  Europe  as  reaching  $3,250,000,000  an- 
nually. 

The  growing  sentiment  of  international 
solidarity  is,  by  all  odds,  the  most  important 
step  in  the  direction  of  universal  peace. 
Socialists  are  justly  proud  of  having,  within 
recent  years,  done  much  toward  preventing 
wars  between  Austria  and  Italy,  France  and 
Germany,  and  Norway  and  Sweden.  Amity 
among  nations,  cementing  the  ties  of  fraternity 
to  the  end  of  making  the  earth  the  common 
possession  of  all,  is  the  goal  of  the  international 
Socialist  movement.  The  vari-colored  flags  of 
different  countries  serve  only  to  lift  one  man's 
arm  against  his  brother ;  the  crimson  standard 
of  Socialism  is  breaking  down  the  barriers  that 
stand  in  the  way  of  universal  peace  and  good 
will. 

"The  growth  of  the  democratic  spirit  is  one 
of  the  most  important  facts  in  the  political 


SOCIALIST  STATESMANSHIP  147 

life  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  Professor 
Smith  observes.  "From  present  indications, 
we  are  at  the  threshold  of  a  new  social  order 
under  which  the  few  will  no  longer  rule  the 
many."  And  Spargo,  in  his  "Socialism,"  has 
splendidly  developed  this  thought  of  the  "Com- 
munist Manifesto:"  "In  place  of  the  old  bour- 
geois society,  with  its  classes  and  class  antag- 
onisms, we  shall  have  an  association  in  which 
the  free  development  of  each  is  the  condition 
for  the  free  development  of  all." 

The  task  it  is  the  historic  mission  of  the 
Socialist  movement  of  the  world  to  achieve  is 
as  magnificent  in  its  proportions  as  it  is  in 
its  ideals.  The  tremendous  nature  of  that  task 
cannot  be  overestimated.  Kautsky  well  re- 
minds us,  in  one  of  the  concluding  passages  of 
his  great  work  on  the  social  revolution:  "The 
proletariat  will  require  high  intelligence,  strong 
discipline,  perfect  organization  of  its  great 
masses ;  and  these  must,  at  the  same  time,  have 
become  most  indispensable  in  economic  life  if 
it  is  to  attain  the  strength  sufficient  to  over- 
come so  formidable  an  opponent.  We  may 
expect  that  it  will  only  succeed  in  the  latter 
when  it  will  have  developed  these  qualities  in 
the  highest  degree,  and  that,  therefore,  the 
domination  of  the  proletariat,  and  with  it  the 
social  revolution,  will  not  take  place  until  not 
only  the  economic,  but  also  the  psychological 
conditions  of  a  Socialist  society  are  sufficiently 
ripened." 

The  Socialist  looks  forward  to  the  future 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  certain  victory.  For 


148  SOCIALISM  FOR  STUDENTS 

the  stream  of  the  new  world  thought  and 
movement  is  flowing  on.  Little  more  than 
half  a  century  ago  its  headwaters  gathered  in 
the  work  of  Marx  and  Engels,  gathered  from 
the  rockribbed  mountains  of  philosophy, 
economics,  politics  and  history.  Here  a  brook 
empties  its  crystal  clear  waters  of  learning 
into  it;  there  a  sister  current  greets  it.  Further 
along  is  its  confluence  with  science;  art  and 
literature  light  its  way.  The  stream  rushes 
on.  It  is  now  international  in  character.  It 
ever  broadens,  reaches  into  new  lands,  gains 
in  prestige.  It  commands  the  voice  of  govern- 
ments; it  swerves  the  destiny  of  nations.  As 
its  powers  grows,  kingdoms  tremble,  thrones 
totter,  tyrannies  fall.  The  social  revolution  is 
fought  and  won.  The  old  epoch — the  epoch 
of  class  strife  and  subjection  of  the  toilers — is 
ended.  The  new  era — the  era  of  the  com- 
radeship and  freedom  of  labor — is  begun. 


APPENDIX. 

The  following  course  of  reading  is  suggested  to 
the  student.  It  covers  the  subjects  touched  upon  in 
the  foregoing  pages,  and  is  arranged  in  the  order 
the  works  should  be  read. 

For  any  one  who  cannot  see  his  way  clear  to 
do  such  extensive  reading,  a  short  cut  may  be  made 
by  taking  the  works  under  the  captions  "Introduc- 
tion" and  "Socialist  Statesmanship,"  after  which 
that  phase  of  the  question  particularly  appealing 
to  the  reader  may  be  studied. 

INTRODUCTION 

What's  So  and  What  Isn't.     By  John  M.  Work. 

The  Socialists.     By  John  Spargo. 

The  Common  Sense  of  Socialism.   By  John  Spargo. 

The   Socialist  Program.     By  Karl  Kautsky. 

Modern  Socialism.     By  Charles  H.  Vail. 

Principles  of  Scientific  Socialism.  By  Charles  H. 
Vail. 

Communist  Manifesto.  By  Karl  Marx  and  F. 
Engels. 

Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific.     By  F.  Engels. 

Socialism,  Its  Growth  and  Outcome.  By  William 
Morris  and  Belfort  Bax. 

History  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States.  By 
M.  Hillquit.  Funk  and  Wagnalls  Co.,  New  York. 

Recent  Progress  of  the  Socialist  Movement  in 
America.  By  M.  Hillquit. 

THE  SOCIALIST  INDICTMENT 

Capital,  Vol.  I,  part  8.     By  Karl  Marx. 
Condition  of  the  Working  Class  in  England.     65 
F.   Engels.     Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  London. 

149 


150  APPENDIX 

People  of  the  Abyss.  By  Jack  London.  The 
Macmillan  Co.,  New  York. 

History  of  Great  American  Fortunes.  By  Gus- 
tavus  Myers. 

American  Pauperism.     By  I.  Ladoff. 

Poverty.  By  Robert  Hunter.  The  Macmillan  Co., 
New  York. 

Packingtown.     By  A.   M.   Simons. 

Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children.  By  John  Spargo. 
The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York. 

Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor.  May,  1904. 
Washington,  D.  C. 

SOCIALIST  ECONOMICS 

What  is   Capital?    By   F.   Lassalle. 

Wage-Labor  and  Capital.     By  Karl  Marx. 

Value,  Price   and   Profit.     By   Karl   Marx. 

Collectivism.     By  Emile  Vandervelde. 

Evolution  of  Modern  Capitalism.  By  John  A. 
Hobson.  Scribners,  New  York. 

Commercial  Crises  of  the  19th  Century.  By  H. 
M.  Hyndman.  Swan  Spnnenschein  &  Co.,  London. 

Economics  of  Socialism.  By  H.  M.  Hyndman. 
Twentieth  Century  Press,  London. 

Marxian  Economics.     By  Ernest  Untermann. 

Poverty   of   Philosophy.     By   Karl    Marx. 

Contribution  to  the  Critique  of  Political  Economy. 
By  Karl  Marx.  International  Library  Publishing 
Co.,  New  York. 

Capital.     By  Karl  Marx. 

THE  CLASS  STRUGGLE 

War  of  the  Classes.  By  Jack  London.  The  Mac- 
millan Co.,  New  York. 

Mass  and  Class.  By  W.  J.  Ghent.  The  Mac- 
millan Co.,  New  York. 

The  World's  Revolutions.    By  Ernest  Untermann. 

Story  of  the  French  Revolution.  By  E.  Belfort 
Bax.  Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  London. 


APPENDIX  151 

History  of  the  Paris  Commune.  By  E.  Belfort 
Bax.  Twentieth  Century  Press,  London. 

From  Revolution  to  Revolution.  By  George  D. 
Herron. 

Class  Struggles  in  America.     By  A.  M.  Simons. 

Rise  of  the  American  Proletarian.  By  Austin 
Lewis. 

The  Pullman  Strike.    By  W.  H.  Carwardine. 

HISTORICAL  MATERIALISM 

Socialism,  Positive  and  Negative.  By  Robert 
Rives  LaMonte. 

Evolution   of    Property.    By  Paul  Lafargue. 

Essays  on  the  Materialistic  Conception  of  His- 
tory. By  A.  Labriola. 

Socialism  and  Philosophy.     By  A.  Labriola. 

Economic  Interpretation  of  History.  By  E.  R. 
A.  Seligman.  University  of  Columbia  Press,  New 
York. 

Economic  Foundations  of  Society.     By  A.  Loria. 

Ethics  and  the  Materialistic  Conception.  By  Karl 
Kautsky. 

The  Theoretical  System  of  Karl  Marx.  By  Louis 
Boudin. 

Revolution  and  Counter  Revolution.  By  Karl 
Marx. 

Eighteenth  Brumaire  of  Louis  Bonaparte.  By 
Karl  Marx. 

Eastern  Question.     By  Karl  Marx. 

SOCIALISM  AND  SCIENCE 

The  Triumph  of  Life.    By  Wilhelm  Boelsche. 
The  End  of  the  World.     By  Wilhelm  Meyer. 
The  Making  of  the  World.  By  Wilhelm  Meyer. 
Life  and  Death.     By  E.  Teichmann. 
The  Evolution  of  Man.     By  Wilhelm  Boelsche. 
Germs  of  Mind   in   Plants.     By  R.   H.  France. 
The  Universal  Kinship.     By  J.  Howard  Moore.^ 
Evolution,  Social  and  Organic.     By  A.  M.  Lewis. 
Parasitism,  Organic  and  Social.    By  Jean  Massart 


153  APPENDIX 

and  Emile  Vandervelde.    Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co., 
London. 

Socialism   and   Modern  Science.     By  E.  Ferri. 

Science  and  Revolution.     By  Ernest  Untermann. 

SOCIALIST  SOCIOLOGY 

Ancient   Society.     By  Lewis   Morgan. 

Origin  of  the  Family,  Private  Property  and  the 
State.  By  F.  Engels. 

Woman  under  Socialism.  By  August  Bebel. 
New  York  Labor  News  Co.,  New  York. 

Man  and  Woman.  By  Havelock  Ellis.  Scribners, 
New  York. 

Criminal  Sociology.  By  E.  Ferri.  D.  Appleton 
&  Co.,  New  York. 

Positive  School  of  Criminology.     By  E.  Ferri. 

Better  World  Philosophy.     By  J.  Howard  Moore. 

General  Sociology.  By  Albion  W.  Small.  U.  of 
Chicago  Press,  Chicago. 

Psychic  Factors  of  Civilization.  By  Lester  F. 
Ward.  Ginn  &  Co.,  Boston. 

Applied  Sociology.  By  Lester  F.  Ward.  Ginn 
&  Co.,  Boston. 

SOCIALIST  PHILOSOPHY 

Physical  Basis  of  Mind  and  Morals.  By  M.  H. 
Fitch. 

Feuerbach.     By  F.   Engels. 

Landmarks  of  Scientific  Socialism.     By  F.  Engels. 

Anarchism  and  Socialism.     By  George  Plechanoff. 

Mr.  Mallock's  Ability.  By  M.  Hillquit.  Socialist 
Literature  Co.,  New  York. 

Ten  Blind  Leaders  of  the  Blind.  By  Arthur  M. 
Lewis. 

Human,  All  Too  Human.     By  F.  Nietzsche. 

Social  and  Philosophical  Studies.  By  Paul  La- 
fargue. 

Philosophical   Essays.     By  Joseph  Dietzgen. 

Positive  Outcome  of  Philosophy.  By  Joseph 
Dietzgen. 


APPENDIX  158 

SOCIALIST    STATESMANSHIP 

The  Social   Revolution.     By  Karl  Kautsky. 

Socialism  in  Theory  and  Practice.  By  M.  Hill- 
quit.  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York. 

No   Compromise.     By  Wilhelm   Liebknecht. 

Changes  in  the  Theory  and  Tactics  of  the  German 
Social-Democracy.  By  Paul  Kampffmeyer. 

The  Day  of  Judgment.     By  George  D.  Herron. 

American  Farmer.     By  A.  M.  Simons. 

What  the  Socialists  would  do  if  they  Won  in 
this  City.  By  A.  M.  Simons. 

Socialism.  By  John  Spargo.  The  Macmillan  Co., 
New  York. 

The  Road  to  Power.  By  Karl  Kautsky.  Daily 
Socialist,  Chicago. 


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